Only one Person Left
by awesome detective DG
Summary: A mysterious black hole sucks the avengers and the half bloods into the future, where they have to all participate in the hunger games. Who will be the last person left? Who will surivie? Will they defeat their foes, luke and Loki? This will be angsty and have alot of Percy,annabeth and Iron man, Hulk. NO SLASH!
1. Chapter 1

**Hey guys! I'm back, but with a different story this time. My other story didn't get as much response as I had wanted, but what can you do right? So this time, it's a avengers story.**

**I just loved the movie when I finally watched it (which was a long time from when it came out in theatres). I loved the reaction between the hulk and iron man! I also love Mark Ruffalo playing the hulk. He was the best person for the job. And Robert Downey Jr. was amazing as always! So anyways, this story will be action packed with twist and cool things happening!**

**It'll be a story with my two favourite fanfiction worlds! The avengers and Percy Jackson!**

**Here we go…**

…

Percy's POV

Slash.

Parrie.

Dodge.

Beads of sweat dropped to the floor from my forehead. I was at the fighting arena at my favourite place in the entire world with my favourite person in the entire world. So naturally, I was fighting Annabeth at Camp Half Blood. A sword to sword battle. We had been going at each other for at least 45 minutes non stop by now.

Annabeth lunged at my stomach with her sword, and I dropped to the floor.

"Whoa!"

"Ready to give up yet?" Annabeth asked me as she lunged at me once again while I was on the floor. I rolled away just in time. The sword point hit the spot where my head was a second ago. I quickly jumped up, caught her off guard and put my sword edge in front of her throat.

"never." I said.

Annabeth then ducked down and got behind me. I turned around to meet her, but she disarmed me and my sword skittered onto the hard floor of the arena some ways away from me.

Annabeth chuckled and lowered her sword, took a step back and stood in a fighting stance once again. She knew that my sword would return to my pocket in a few seconds. And of course, that's exactly what happened. I put my hand in the pocket of my shorts and found the sword in pen form.

I took it out, clicked it, and it transformed into the sword Riptide once again. We stood facing each other for easily a minute, until finally; Annabeth took the first move and tried to slash at my throat. I raised my sword to meet hers, and stopped the slash mid way.

I pressed down hard, until Annabeth gave in and the sword dropped to the ground. Before she could react, I dropped to the ground and picked up her sword. I then raised my sword in front of her throat, and her own sword behind her throat so that she was trapped.

"Now, are you ready to give up?" I asked.

She sighed and said, "Rematch next Friday?"

"You're on."

I lowered my sword from her throat, and gave her back her own sword.

We walked out of the arena hand in hand, to find Camp Half Blood bustling about as usual. Campers were having sword fighting lessons, there were canoe races in the lake, archery was being taught, and the climbing wall was full of campers and lava. Both Annabeth and I had free time, so we had decided to practice our sword fighting. You can never get out of practice, now can you?

Then I had an idea.

"Hey annabeth, you want to go to the lake?"

She shrugged and said, "Why not?" The lake of course, was my most favourite place in Camp Half Blood. So of course I decided to go to the lake.

And that's how Annabeth and I were found sitting on the edge of the mini lake with our feet in the water.

Annabeth had her pants rolled up so that she wouldn't get them wet. Of course I didn't have to do that since I can't get wet in water.

I put my hand on top of hers. She looked down at our hands and smiled.

"Its great, isn't it." She said.

"What is?" I asked innocently.

"Not having to worry about anything. No fighting, no wars, no monsters, just training.

I sighed wistfully. "Yeah it is. But we can't get too comfortable. After all, being a demigod, nothing can last long."

"Let's enjoy it while we can then." Annabeth said.

After that, there was silence. But not the awkward type of silence. It was the "lets be silent and enjoy this moment" type of silence.

I started swirling the calm waters around me with my foot, making a mini whirlpool appear next to me in the lake.

Annabeth stared at it, transfixed by the swirling waters. When she was busy looking at the whirlpool, I grabbed her hand, and pulled her into the lake.

She exclaimed in surprise as I pulled her deeper into the lake. I laughed at her face. She punched me in the arm as irealized that she needed air. I pulled her back to the surface.

"You-you idiot!" she spluttered.

I laughed as she sprayed me with water in the face.

"I could've died, it's not funny!"

"I would never let you die." I said as I pulled her closer toward me.

"Whatever." She said with a pout.

Then I laughed again as I made a huge wave of water dunk us. Annabeth came back up laughing as well.

"All right, all right, I get it." Annabeth said. "Come on, we're going to be late for archery."

"awww, but I hate archery!"

"Stop being a whiny baby."

"I am not!" I exclaimed.

We walked out of the lake, me dry and Annabeth soaking wet.

Annabeth cleared her throat as I walked in front of her.

"Aren't you going to do anything about me being wet?" she asked.

"Fine."

I touched her arm and all the water slowly dropped to the floor from annabeth's body.

"Come on then." I said.

Just as we were about to start to walk over to the archery range, the ground started to tremble. It slowly grew more violent with every minute.

"Wh-what's happening. Is it an earthquake?" Annabeth asked as she stumbled due to the violent rumbling.

"Well, we're in New York, I don't think that earthquakes usually happen here." Annabeth glared at me.

Suddenly, in front of us a small hole opened up. It was pure black and about the size of a puddle.

"What is that?" Annabeth exclaimed with surprise etched in her voice.

"I don't know!" I shouted with similar surprise.

The small hole slowly started to get bigger and bigger as me and Annabeth watched in shocked silence, our feet glued to the ground. As it got bigger, it also started to suck in air and the grass around it. It got more powerful and bigger as a small bush was dragged in. I could feel my feet slipping due to the powerful force.

As I got the feeling in my legs back, I shouted, "Hold on to something Annabeth!" I found a nearby tree and held onto it for dear life.

I saw that Annabeth was having trouble getting away from the hole.

"Annabeth! Hold on to my hand!"

She slowly inched her way toward my hand and finally grabbed on.

"Yes!" she exclaimed.

I held on to the big tree for what felt like an eternity. I could feel my fingers slowly slipping from around the bark of the tree. My hand was getting more tired by the second.

The black hole got even bigger, until it finally stopped growing. But although it stopped growing, it started sucking in even more air. Beside my tree, another tree was dragged into the hole. It wasn't going to be long before the tree I was holding onto was going to get sucked in. I knew though, that I would get sucked in before that. I felt my hand slip farther. I wouldn't be able to hold on any longer no matter how much I tried.

My hand slipped from the tree.

"No!" I exclaimed.

I heard annabeth scream as we both were sucked into the giant hole.

Then there was nothing but darkness.

…..

**Ohhhhh cliffy! **

**Wondering what'll happen next? Well, I guess you're gonna have to wait a week… or two. But you won't be disappointed!**

**Next chapter will be from Bruce Banner's point of view.**

**Read and Review!**

**-Detective DG**


	2. Chapter 2

**Hey Guys, here's that update! The second chapter to this story! **

**Honestly, I think this was my favourite chapter to write since I actually have 9 chapters ready right now. So, I think that after chapter 9, the updates will probably get slower, but I don't know there's like 7 chapters till then.**

**So anyways, I'm gonna stop rambling and get on with this chapter!**

…

Bruce's POV

We were in the lab.

Well, of course we were in the lab, where else would we be?

To be specific, Tony and I were in the most high tech lab I've ever seen in my life, in the newly rebuilt Stark towers which also substituted as Avenger's mansion.

I was staring, transfixed, at a holographic computer screen looking at a new design for the newest iron man armour. It was late at night. The last time I had asked JARVIS for the time, he had said that it was 12:30. And I'm sure at least an hour and a half has passed since then. All the avengers were most likely in their rooms sleeping soundly by now.

We avengers had moved in here a week ago. Of course, I would be a lot more comfortable if I were in India, secluded from everyone else, but Tony pestered me so much that I finally couldn't take it anymore and had to come, in fear of the other guy coming out. I could feel the other guy stirring in me every time Tony tried to talk about it. And I would never want anything bad to happen.

As much as the other guy helped in the big fight, he was still as much as a monster as he was before.

Tony even made a steel covered room so that it was hulk proof.

Apparently, I could go in there to let of steam when I felt like I was losing control. All that meant to me was another room to hold in the monster that is hulk. I know that Tony meant well and I respected that, but I still had the dark thoughts.

I know how everyone treats me different. How they always tread cautiously around me. After all these years of getting the same reactions whenever I talk to someone have trained me to see the signs, even though other people might not notice that. I know that everyone is at least a little bit scared of me.

But for some reason, tony seems like the only person who is actually not scared of for some crazy reason. Tony frankly doesn't care. He doesn't care that I'm the hulk. In fact, he takes every second he has with me and tries to get me annoyed to see if I would turn into the hulk.

But of course, I've had years of practice controlling my anger. His pestering and annoyance is nothing compared to some of the other things I've dealt with. I could never get angry with what he does. In fact, to tell you the truth, his trying to annoy the shit out of me gets the total opposite reaction.

It makes me _happy_. It makes me happy to know that at least one person in this entire universe is not the least bit scared of me. That's all I needed. Just one person who's not scared of me, the loose cannon, or my ugly green monster. And Tony is that person.

A course voice snapped me out of my train of thought.

"Hey, do you know where the wire for this part of the connection is?"

Tony was at the other end of the lab, surrounded by holographic images. He pointed to one of the images.

"Uh yeah, I think its somewhere over here…?" I moved over to the desk beside me and started rummaging through some plan sketches and a bunch of other papers of who knows what. As I was looking through the last of the papers, Tony's voice again came from the other side of the lab.

"Found it."

I sighed in a tinge of annoyance as I looked at all the papers I had dishevelled. I decided to ignore it since I would just have to clean everything up in the end anyways, since Tony never seemed to do that. I went back to the holographic image I was peering at. I got a tad more annoyed when I found a flaw in the design of the armour. Without fixing it, it could short-circuit the entire suit while tony was in it.

These days I had been finding on edge a lot more often. I was a lot more annoyed and angry too, for some reason. Not angry enough for the other guy to come out, but angry enough for me to feel him bubbling at the front of my mind. I don't know, but the feeling is really hard to explain. Its like I'm just waiting for something really bad to happen, but I don't know what it is and when it's going to happen. And i'm getting annoyed because that something is not happening. It's like the smallest of things set me off.

I remember the time two days ago when I almost snapped.

…

_We were all sitting at a table in the kitchen for dinner. It had been a long day, with high tensions and some arguments. Steve was sitting on one end of the table, and tony on the other (thankfully)._

_I was sitting beside Tony and Thor beside me. Natasha and Clint sat opposite from us. _

_Unfortunately, even though Tony and Steve were across from each other, they were still having one of their signature arguments. This time, it was because Tony hadn't been paying attention in one of their briefing meetings that they had today, and was instead on his phone instead. Everyone was quietly listening to their argument while eating, trying to act as if they weren't listening when they of course, were._

"_Do you not care about what we do? Huh? Do you think that this is all fun and games? I know you're dad wouldn't think that." Steve shot at Tony. _

_At the sound of his father, Tony openly flinched. I could see the raw hurt in his eyes that he was so good at hiding with a mask of his ego. I doubted that anyone else noticed._

"_I think that you are a bastard who doesn't know anything about listening to orders, or my dad!" tony shouted fiercely back at him._

"_And you know everything, don't you!"_

"_I think I do!"_

_A voice interrupted their shouting match._

"_Look, tony, why don't you just stop the argument. It's not going to go anywhere," Clint said quietly._

"_Oh, so you're taking Roger's side then? I see how it is you douche!" tony bellowed at him._

"_Hey!" Natasha shot at Tony. "Don't talk to Clint that way!"_

"_I can talk to Clint anyway I want, I'm me!"_

"_No, you're just a self-centered Bastard."_

"_Oh, and you're a perfect little angel, eh?" Tony said bitterly with a lopsided smirk on his face._

_Suddenly a booming voice came from the table._

"_Friend Tony, friend Steve, friend Natasha! Stop this madness!" Thor exclaimed, but no one took heed. The entire table was shouting at each other. Tony with Steve and Natasha, Clint trying to calm down Natasha by screaming at her, and Thor trying to help by talking over everyone, so that everyone had to talk even louder. Me on the other hand just sitting quietly listening to the shouting match. I wasn't one to join in arguments. They usually don't end well when I join in. so I just sit and listen, while occasionally calming people down. _

_Of course, like every other time in my life, no one seemed to notice or me, or care in that case. The entire table was in chaos. I could feel the other guy bursting from the barriers I put up in my head to stop him from making an appearance._

_It was all I could do to keep him at bay. If this went on any longer, I would not be able to stop myself from turning into the other guy. I scrunched my eyes shut really hard, feeling the pain both mentally and physically, trying to stop the Hulk from making an experience. I had to do something to stop this, and I knew that the others would never notice my little dilemma._

"_STOP IT!" I shouted at the top of my lungs with a little growl in my voice._

"_THIS IS POINTLESS!" don't you people get it? Fighting will not solve any of our problems! Steve, Tony, you guys don't have to fight all the fricken' time! When you do, you sound like six year olds fighting over a cookie! It is so fricken stupid! It ruins the entire team. So why don't we all just SHUT UP and eat, all right? Or can we not do that either?" I paused. "Now eat!" I demanded and ended my speech with another growl._

_By the end of my little speech, everyone was looking at me as if I had grown a third head. I had gotten really angry by then. You could here my heartbeat monitor watch beeping out of control. It sounded like gunshots in the silence. I always kept it on, just in case something like this happened._

_I shut my eyes and took deep breaths in and out for at least five minutes before I was calm enough to look back at the other avengers. When I finally opened my eyes, I saw that all the avengers were looking down at their plates in a tense silence, probably afraid that I would Hulk out. As if I didn't even have the freedom to get angry by myself once in a while. Though I would have to admit that I probably would at the slightest disturbance._

_After about five minutes, I got up and muttered "I'm done here." The whole team watched as I placed my dish in the sink rather loudly and stomped out of the kitchen._

_As I walked toward my room, I could here faint voices coming from in the kitchen. I opened the door to my bedroom door and slammed it shut. I went over to my bed and sat down, again closing my eyes and trying to calm myself, just like I have been my entire life. I was a turtle trapped in his own shell._

…_.._

_The next day, I noticed that everyone, even Tony, kept a little bit of distance from me, afraid that I might hulk out at any moment._

_I was used to it though, so it didn't bother me…much._

_After all, I didn't blame them for being afraid._

_.-..-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-_

A loud bang shook me out of my flashback. For some reason the entire lab was shaking violently. The shaking must have made something fall. I turned around alarmed, only to find Tony staring at something in the middle of the lab. He noticed me looking and pointed shakily at it. I moved over to where Tony was slowly and stood beside him.

He was pointing at a medium sized round, black circle on the ground. As we were looking at it, it got bigger.

"What is that?" I asked shakily.

"It looks like it's a black circle." Tony stated.

"Well, I know that. I can see you know." I said sarcastically.

"Sorry." He said in a mocking tone. I could practically feel the smirk on his face.

By now it had gotten so big, that we were backed into a corner of the lab next to a table.

"That kind of looks like a black hole doesn't it?" tony said observantly.

"Yeah, it does. Its black of course and it doesn't look like any light can get in or out of it." I answered.

"Yeah…" tony said slowly as if he had a thought forming in his head.

Suddenly a grave thought hit me.

"Hey, if that's a black hole, shouldn't it be sucking in air and everything around it?"

"Yeah that would make sense. That's what I was thinking." Tony said slowly again.

Just as he said that, the hole stopped growing. I let out a sigh of relief.

It didn't last long.

Just as I feared, the black hole started sucking in air. Each second that passed, the hole sucked in more and more air. It became so powerful that my feet started skidding toward it.

"Hold on to something!" Tony bellowed.

I couldn't give a response because I was too busy trying to keep the hulk at bay and trying to grab the nearest table. The other guy didn't like the idea of there being a huge hole in the middle of the room. I couldn't hold him off any longer.

"Bruce, you have to hulk out! I cant hold on any longer!" Tony's strained voice came from beside me.

"But…" I said with my teeth gritted. Any second now I would turn into the other guy.

"DO IT!"

I gave into his request.

I closed my eyes and let out a deep breath. I could feel the barriers of calm that I put up in my mind melting away, and pure rage filling its place. I felt the transformation begin. My muscles ripped and stretched. I scrunched my eyes closed, waiting for the two minute transformation to end.

Finally, I caught one last glance of the black hole and saw green.

;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;

The hulk didn't know why there was a big hole in the middle of the room. He also didn't know why he felt like he was being pulled into it, but he didn't like it at all.

Something was pushing his leg.

The hulk looked down and saw a little puny human pushing, trying to get his attention while holding onto a table. The hulk soon recognized him as the tin man. It looked to him as If the tin man were being pulled into the weird hole.

"Hey hulk? A little help here? Maybe hold me so that I wont get sucked into that big, black hole?"

The hulk grumbled as he picked up the tin man.

"Puny human."

"Yeah, yeah now can we go?"

The hulk grunted and tried to walk away from the hole but something stopped him from doing so. Each step became more and more difficult. The hulk had to hold on to a table or he would be pulled into the hole. He didn't know why he couldn't walk, but he also didn't like that. It made him angry.

With each minute, whatever was sucking in the hulk became stronger. It became harder and harder to hold on. Tables and desks were being sucked in. the only reason the hulk's table didn't get sucked in, was because he had shoved it into the ground. The wind got even stronger as the hulk's fingers slipped one by one from the table.

"Hold on big guy!" The tin man shouted from in the hulk's hand.

The hulk growled at the tin man to stop shouting.

Slowly the winds got stronger, and the hulk's fingers finally slipped from the table.

The tin man screamed a high pitch scream, and they were both sucked into the black hole.

;-0;-0;-;0-;0-;0-;0-0;0-0;0-0;0-0;0-0;0-0;0-0;0-0;0-0;0-0;

**There we are! Another beautiful chapter done.**

**Now updates are elementary my dear Watson.**

**Don't forget to review!  
-detective DG**


	3. Chapter 3

**Yes, the awesome detective is back!**

**And thank you, for being awesome yourself!**

**All the reviews great! Thanks guys! Now ready yourselves for an awesome chapter 3.**

**-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-**

Annabeth POV

A sliver of light met my eyes. I tried to shield the light, but it just wouldn't go away. Before fully opening my eyes, I tried to register where I was. I could feel that I was lying on the ground, that much was obvious. But of course, I didn't know where.

I was lying on something that felt a lot like sand, or a beach. The last thing I realized was that it was hot.

Very hot.

At that point, I decided to open my eyes. I slowly opened them, and waited for them to adjust to the bright light. As soon as I could see, I gasped in shock. I was in the middle of a barren waist land.

I was in the middle of a desert.

I got up off the floor, and dusted myself off. How did I get here? The last I knew, Percy and I were at camp. But then, there was there was the black hole, and us getting sucked into it…oh no. the black hole must've been a portal that transported me here. But then if I was here, and Percy had also got sucked into the hole, where was Percy? How could I find anyone in this place?

That wasn't the only problem.

I was trapped inside a glass cylinder. The entire thing went around my body, so there was literally no way out. I felt around, trying to see if there was any mistake in the architectural design, any crevasse that I could break, but I found none. I searches, and searched and found nothing. By then, I had started to bang on the glass as hard as I could, but it wouldn't budge.

i was at a loss. I didn't know what to do. I stopped banging on the glass to recollect my thoughts.

Ok, so I was in a desert with no sign of anyone in the nearest ten kilometres. So I was trapped in a glass cage. So I couldn't find Percy. I could find a way to solve all of those problems if I just waited and observed.

So that's exactly what I did.

I stood in the glass cage, surveying my surroundings. I turned three-sixty in the cage. All around me, there was nothing but sand, sand, and more sand. I did that for five minutes, trying to find out ideas of how to break the glass, and what to do once I did.

When I was on my third three-sixty, a flash of light caught my attention. I looked in the direction the flash of light had come from. In the distance directly across from me, I could see a cylinder, similar to mine coming up from beneath the ground. It slowly rose until the bottom of the cage finally came to a rest atop the sandy ground.

There was a person in there too. I tried to see who it was, but I couldn't get a good look at his face properly. All I could see was that he wasn't wearing a shirt. He was only wearing ripped jeans. I wondered why, but didn't have long to dwell on it.

Just as he was stirring from his position on the ground, I saw another cylinder rise up from the ground. This time, when I could fully see who it was, my heart sank.

Percy was in it.

I saw him laying on the ground as well, stirring from the position. I wished he would wake up more quickly, even though we wouldn't be able to talk or communicate with each other if he did.

Just as Percy's platform came up, another platform, and another, and another popped up out of the ground. Unfortunately I recognized about eight of them. I recognized Thalia, Nico, Grover, Clarisse, Rachel and…Luke.

Wait a minute. Luke? What the hell? I swear he died. Could it be a ghost? No…it couldn't. He looked solid enough and he had his signature scar and everything.

But if Luke's alive, then that means I could have a second chance with him! But then again, I had to accept the possibility that he could still be evil. I sighed in grim defeat, when I thought about it and realized that whoever had brought us here, would at least have someone evil against us.

The other eight, though I didn't recognize, though there was a guy with a weird eye patch, a guy with a pointy hat, and a girl with fiery red hair in those eight. Everyone had started to wake up and were panicking when they saw that they were in a cage. I counted sixteen cylinders in total, all placed in a huge circle. Eight people were from camp half blood, and another eight from who knows where.

The most interesting thing I saw was, that in the middle of the circle made by the cylinders, was a horn shaped dome. In the middle of the dome were tables piled with all kinds of things. There were jackets, backpack, water bottles, and I even saw a suitcase that looked like it was made of metal.

Though, the thing that really caught my eye was not good.

There were a lot of weapons in that dome. I saw swords, and guns, and knives. One particular knife caught my eye.

MY knife.

My knife was lying on a table in the middle of the dome.

How had it gotten there? Just to make sure it was mine, I checked in my sock. I always kept my special knife there. I shoved my hand in my sock and hoped that my knife would somehow be there. It wasn't there. Now I was sure that that knife was mine.

How was I going to get it back? I had no idea how to get out of this damn cage, let alone get my knife.

I looked over to Percy who was across from me. He was fully awake by now and looking around. He saw me looking at him and he made a tiny heart with his hands. I smiled at him and made a heart with my hands. He seemed satisfied enough, and went back to looking at the desert.

2 minutes passed and nothing happened. Everyone stood in their platforms not doing much of anything, because frankly, you can't really do anything in a small glass cylinder.

After another couple of minutes though, something did happen. A voice happened, to be specific.

"_Welcome tributes."_

I looked around, bewildered, trying to find out where this disembodied voice had come from. It seemed to have filled the entire desert and come out of thin air.

"_You sixteen have been chosen to participate in a game."_

Game? This is a game?

"Doesn't look like a very fun game to me!" Thalia shouted into the air from her cylinder.

"_Oh this will be a very fun game, I assure you."_

Thalia gasped. Apparently the voice can hear us too.

"_We are the game keepers. We will be monitoring you and controlling this here game." _The voice that was probably the gamekeeper said. "_8 of you are from Camp Half Blood and are half god, half human, with one exception who is an enemy."_

I sighed gravely. Luke.

"T_he other 8 are a part of the avengers, a superhero team, with an exception of one person who is also their enemy."_

So that's who they were. The other eight people I didn't recognize were superheroes. That explains all the weird gadgets and weapons in the dome.

"_This game is called the hunger games. That black hole that you saw was a teleportation device used to bring you all to the future. This is the year 2070." (_**AN: sorry if the dates wrong, I forget what year it was in the hunger games)**

What the hell is this? Now I was totally confused. How were we in the future? As far as I know (and I know a lot) it is impossible to travel to time. Physics just doesn't allow it. How could we have traveled to the future?

But then again, we were defiantly nowhere near USA. The voice was probably some guy talking from a computer. I looked around to see if there were any speakers nearby, but couldn't find any. If there were no speakers, then whoever was talking had to be taking through something very high tech. I had no choice but to trust what he said and accept that we were in the future. There was no other explanation for this.

"_The hunger games is a traditional game that all of panem plays." Usually 24 tributes are chosen, but in this case there are only 16. The objective of the game is to kill each other." _I gasped. _"There can only be one tribute left at the end of the games. The games last until everyone except for one person is killed. So it could last as long a seven months, or two weeks. There will be many obstacles in this game. For example, the problem of water."_

I nodded grimly in realization. This was a desert. It would be very hard to find any water in this place. We would only be able to survive for 3 days without water. After that we would die. I looked around and saw that the only water in this place was in the dome in the middle of all the tributes.

"_The area in the middle where you see all the supplies is called the cornucopia. That is where you can get you're specific weapons, extra food, and most importantly, water. I think you have noticed that you're favourable weapon is in the cornucopia. You will have to get that if you are to have any chance to survive here."_

I realized that it would be a mad dash to the cornucopia once we were let out of our cages to get our weapons and good enough supplies.

Suddenly, in our cylinders, something rose up out of the ground. It was a piece of clothing. A one piece jumpsuit to be exact. It was hanging from some type of futuristic nail. The entire thing was gray with an owl design on its left side. I looked around and saw that everyone else were getting similar jumpsuits, except with different colours and a different design on the left side. I looked at Percy's and saw that his was a pretty sea green with a trident on the left side.

"_You all will have to wear these jumpsuits while playing the game."_ The voice said. "_You absolutely will not be able to wear your own clothing in the games."_ It paused "_I suggest you put it on now on top of you're clothing or I will not hesitate to electrocute you very harshly. The electrocution will be so powerful that even Thalia and Thor will be burnt, so put your jumpsuit on now."_

I looked around, wide eyed. How had known Thalia's name? I didn't know any amount of electricity could burn her. And who was Thor? I groaned in frustration as I took my jumpsuit and slipped it over my normal clothes. I looked up and saw that everyone was doing the same.

Just as I finished putting my jumpsuit on, the voice came again.

"_Very good. Now I will lower your glass cylinders. If anyone chooses to step outside of your platform, I will make sure you die on the spot."_

The glass slowly lowered, until I was standing on nothing but a metal platform on top of the sand. I slowly looked around and was met with the eyes of all the demigods. We all made a silent agreement to quickly take our weapons from the cornucopia and leave as soon as possible.

"_There will be a countdown from 10. Once it reaches 0, you will be able to leave the platform. Remember, if you get off before that, you will die. Good luck, and may the odds be ever in you're favour. The countdown starts now."_

I frantically looked around the desert, trying to form a plan, any plan, but for the first time none came.

A robotic male voice started counting.

10

9

8

My heart started beating a mile a minute in anticipation.

7

6

5

I looked around at everyone standing. They all looked as nervous as I felt.

4

3

This would be the moment of truth.

2

1

…0

It was dead silent for at least 5 seconds after the voice said zero. Then everyone exploded and ran toward the cornucopia. I stood stock still on my platform for 20 seconds, not knowing what to do. Then I felt a hand on my arm pulling me over to the cornucopia.

It was Percy.

I told myself to pull it together, and ran with Percy to the cornucopia.

**Well, did you have fun? **

**Ok…I sounded like a creeper to myself…weird.**

**Anyways, ill probably be posting an update every 1-2 weeks. I don't have a computer at home and I have to go to the library every time I have to do something on a computer and apparently im not allowed to go on the weekdays. So I'll try to get my updates posted every week – two weeks, and sometime maybe 3. But of course, I'll try for one week like I did with this! ;)**

**Don't forget to review!**

**-Detective DG**


	4. Chapter 4

**Iiiii"mmm baaaacckk. (said in creepy voice)**

**I watched you when you were sleeping! (To quote phil coulson in the avengers.)**

**No I didn't. im not that creepy!**

**Aaannnywaays…here is the next chapter!**

**-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-**

Tony's POV

No.

No, no, no, no, no.

This cannot be happening.

I refuse to believe it. I was in the middle of the frieken' desert. Again!?

No, this cannot be true. I think I've had enough dessert for a lifetime.

The whole time I was in that damn cage, I stood there, trying not to have a full blown panic. I tried taking deep breath in and out, like what Bruce does when he feels like he's losing control, but it didn't help much. I was way too wound up for that to help. I don't know how Bruce does it.

I actually think that this is enough proof to say that the universe _does_ hate me. It goes out of its way to make everything the worst for me. I bet that no one else has a deadly fear of deserts in this place. All everyone else has to worry about is staying alive and looking for food and water.

For me? It brings back the worst memories. I kept having these flashbacks in the cage that made me shiver with fear and leave me shaking to the bone.

I was barely listening to the gamekeepers voice through the high tech speakers. I honestly didn't care if these people had more high tech things than me. I didn't give a damn. I was too busy trying not to think about Afghanistan.

Though, some things did make its way into my brain. The part about this being the hunger games and apparently one "tribute" (so apparently we were called tributes) could survive in the end.

I also caught the part about the jumpsuits. I had to because of the fact that we were supposed to wear the ugly things. Mine was entirely red and gold, with the iron man helmet on the left side.

I noticed that there were people in the cylinders besides myself. On one half of the circle, I saw Bruce who was human form with only his ripped pants on, Natasha and Clint, Nick Fury (ah, not him), Thor, Rogers, and finally…Loki.

I paused when I saw that last one. What the hell was Loki doing here? I swear the last time I saw him was when Thor was taking him, via the rainbow bridge, to Asgard. How could he have gotten here? He would be of some trouble to us. I scoffed. Some? I laughed at my own thoughts somewhat hysterically.

I stopped myself. I was going crazy in here. I needed to take my attention off of my own thoughts, so I looked around the horrible desert again.

On the other half of the circle of cylinders, were a bunch of normal looking teenagers. Apparently they were supposed to be half bloods-children of the Greek gods. I had studied a bit of Greek and Roman mythology when I was still in school. And they were supposed to be just that-myths. I scoffed again. Yeah right. Those Greek myths were real. And I was a magical unicorn on my way to Asgard.

I looked over to the cornucopia and saw that there were alot of swords and knives and things like that. There was actually a whole bunch of different weapon.

The thing that worried me, though, was that my armour was also there. After the countdown ended, everyone would run out of their platforms like Thor when he sees pop tarts (trust me you do not want to be in the way of that). Everyone would want their weapon first, but what if thought my armour was cool (which it is) and took it?

'No' I told myself firmly.

I could not afford to think like that. I had enough stuff on my mind without that to worry about.

Just as I was lost to my own thoughts, the countdown began.

No, it couldn't be happening now! I wasn't ready!

10

9

8

I looked around frantically and saw that Bruce was looking at me with concerned eyes. I didn't acknowledge him, and tried to stand still, not that it helped with the shaking.

7

6

5

I couldn't do this. My emotions were slowly crumbling.

4

3

Why us?

2

1

…0

Just as the booming voice said zero, I slipped into yet another flashback.

.-.-.-.-.-.-.-..-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-\

_I couldn't do this anymore._

_It had been hours since I barley managed to escape from that hell of a prison. Yinsen's death still fresh in my head. I could feel tears rolling down my face. I wondered if I would even get out of this damn desert alive._

_It had been hours upon hours since I had my last drink of water. In the prison, they hardly gave us any water. Just barely enough to keep us alive._

_The heat was intense. It was hot enough to cook an egg right on the sand. I didn't know how much longer I would last. I took off the jacket of my suit and tossed it over my head._

_I started walking again. Well, it wasn't really walking, it was more like stumbling. I kept seeing images of Yinsen dying in my hands. I wanted to avenge his death, but I could only do that if I could get out of this shit desert._

_And that's what drove me. _

_Knowing that Yinsen dies only for me to escape. I had to fulfill what he died for. That's what kept me stumbling through the desert. I would've been done hours ago if it weren't for that. _

_After about another hour, I couldn't find and sign of civilization. I was almost completely out of energy. I knew it would just be a matter of time before I couldn't go anymore._

_I was right._

_Just as I suspected would happen eventually, my legs buckled and I fell to the ground, hard. _

_I laid there, just about ready to give up. My throat was parched and my stomach rumbling. I was on the brink of unconsciousness. _

_I felt the rough sand in my mouth, almost choking me just as the water had._

_Just as I was about to fade into the dark, Yinsen's death punched me in the face yet again. I saw his face in my metal hands slowly dying, trying to form a word but not being able to. _

"_Don't waste you're life stark" the words said as clear as if he were right beside me._

_My eyes shot open, the dry world filling my vision. I had to keep going. I couldn't stop now, not when Yinsin died trying to free me. I hoisted myself up, difficultly. As I got up, I swayed on my feet, trying to regain my balance. I took one step forward, then another, and another, stopping every few steps to regain my balance time and time again._

_Just like that, I kept going hoping for someone, anyone, to see me in this godforsaken land. Hoping for a helicopter to see me and rescue me._

_After all, that hope was all I had._

_A hope that would only last for so long._

_;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;_

I was ripped back into the present.

All around me, there was chaos. People were running ever which way, while I was still standing on my little podium. The sound around me seemed muffled and shot.

That last flashback had me shaking more violently that the others had. I could feel the cold sweat on my face and hands. I lifted my hand to my face and saw that it was visibly shaking as well. Shivers went down my spine as I couldn't get that flashback out of my head.

"Tony! TONY!"

Someone was shouting my name in the distance. I cound't hear the voice properly. Who was it?

"Come on, we have to leave. NOW!"

Now this person was shaking my shoulder. I turned around slowly, only to be met with Roger's face. As I stared at him, I realized that he looked blurry and I couldn't see him properly. I couldn't see anything properly.

He grabbed hold of my hand in a death grip, and dpulled me to the cornucopia.

I was pulled along, stumbling and tripping, still in shock. Once we got to the cornucopia, Rogers grabbed his shield from one of the tables. I watched as he frantically looked around for my suitcase of armour.

As I was watching him look for my armor, I saw a sword come down on me from the corner of my eye. I didn't react as I saw Rogers raise his shield between me and the swords. I heard a clang as the sword hit the shield. I only caught a glimpse of the guy who was trying to hit me with the sword. All I saw was a green jumpsuit before he ran away into the desert.

"Stark, get you're armour!"

I just pointed at it shakily on the floor next to the table where Rogers had gotten his shield. I didn't make a move to get it.

Steve noticed me pointing at it and gave me a frustrated look as he went over to it and lifted it up.

"Come on then! The other Avengers are waiting for us in the distance," came Rogers' strained voice.

Still pulling me along, we ran the opposite direction from where the other teenagers were going. In the distance, I barely saw a group of people standing in a circle. Rogers and I were running toward them. He was holding my wrist so tightly that I had lost the feeling in my fingers, but I didn't protest. He was pretty much preventing me from falling face first on the ground by tripping so much.

After what felt like hours of running, we finally got to the other avengers. I saw everyone. Natasha, Clint, Bruce, Thor and Fury. Natasha was wearing a red jumpsuit with a gun on the left side, while Clint wore a black one with a gun as well. Bruce's was green with fist, Thor's yellow and silver with his hammer mjolnir, and finally fury's a menacing gray with knives.

I suddenly realised that I hadn't seen Loki since the countdown ended. I didn't really care where he went, as long as he wasn't anywhere near us.

Rogers placed my armour and his shield on the ground and turned on me.

"What's you're problem stark? Huh? What do you think you're doing standing there making us do all the work for you?"

Everyone looked at me as they heard Steve say this.

"Yeah that was really stupid of you." Fury snarled.

"You could've been killed Stark." Natasha said.

"I think that was the last thing on my mind," I muttered angrily as I dropped down on to the hot sand, frustrated, angry as hell, and just plain depressed.

"Hey, what's wrong?" Bruce's sympathetic voice came from beside me.

I put my head in my hands and pulled at my hair.

"You people don't know crap!" I said. "I'm here, in the middle of the friecken' desert! You don't know shit!" by the end of that sentence, I was shouting. "You people don't take a clue, do you? In fact I think that this is good enough proof to say that the universe hates me once and for all1 it goes out of its way to make everything worse for ME! I bet none of you are afraid of deserts are you?"

I looked up again to be met with Bruce's sad eyes, and even Natasha and Fury had some sympathy in their rock hard gazes. The rest were just looking at me with a confused stare.

I put my head back in my hands. Apparently Bruce had noticed the confused looks and explained what had happened. I had told him one day in the lab about what had happened to me in Afghanistan. I was probably drunk when I told him, or I would have never told anyone. So now he was telling the rest of them. Not that it made a difference at this point.

I heard Bruce's faint voice, "Tony was held hostage in a desert camp in Afghanistan and tortured for three months. He barely made it out alive." I was thankful that he didn't go into the details much.

"Oh" someone said softly. The rest gasped.

Yeah. They didn't know crap. I felt another wave of depression roll over me.

"Come on tony, you can do this. I know that there's going to be no way for you to get used to this, but please at least get yourself together for us. We need iron man. We need you." Bruce told me.

"You need me?" I asked softly. I remembered the words from the shield file about me. _Iron man: yes. Tony Stark: no._ They didn't get that Tony Stark and Iron man were the same person. I didn't think anyone did. They always saw iron man and Tony Stark as two different people. And I knew that even the avengers thought that somewhat. So I was actually surprised when Bruce spoke again.

"Yes we do."

I looked up, surprised. He had his hand held out in front of me to help me up. I accepted it and pulled myself up. I looked at my fellow teammates, and smiled softly. I had come to a decision.

"Look, I don't know ho wrong I can last like this, but you can bet on hell that I'll try."

"Nice!" Clint clapped me on the back.

"Friend Stark, you are back!" Thor exclaimed.

"Well, it's not like I went anywhere…" I started, but I knew what he meant. Inside, I was crumbling emotionally. At least for now, I would try and hold a mask of ego and self-centeredness to hold together the broken pieces.

"Now that we've got that over with," I gave Fury a glare. "Let's get down to business. What do we know is happening?"

"We know that this is the hunger games and that the last person alive, wins." Clint said.

"Yeah and of course that is our main problem right now." Rogers replied, going into full captain mode. "I don't think that they're joking when they say that this could last as long as 7 months. At least long enough until only one person is left."

"well, we'll have to worry about that later. Right now, we have to figure out where to get our food and water." Fury said. "What have we got so far?"

"Well, I got 2 water bottles, a backpack, and 3 packs of packaged foods." A quiet voice said.

Everyone turned to look at Bruce who had said that.

"How that you get that much friend Bruce?" Thor asked.

"Oh, um, I just growled at anyone who got in the way. It was pretty easy since I was already on edge by then…" he trailed off, then he chuckled and said, "Even I thought it was kind of scary."

Everyone looked at him amazed. Bruce shifted his feet and fiddled nervously with his hands from all the attention he was getting.

"Well…I only got 1 water bottle." Natasha stated, taking away the attention off of Bruce.

"I have one water bottle as well." Thor boomed.

"One bag of…something." Clint said.

"Two bags of weird looking chips." Fury held out the two futuristic looking bags.

"Well, since we got nothing," Steve pointed at himself and me, "We should find out what's in the backpack."

Bruce took off the backpack from behind his back and opened the zipper. Inside was another water bottle with no water in it, a sleeping bag and blanket, two knives and a gun, and finally an empty bowl.

"I call the gun." Natasha grabbed for the gun in the backpack and shoved it in one of the pockets of the jumpsuit.

"Then I'll get the knives." Fury said as he took the knives and twirled then in his hands.

"I think that with the four water bottles," I started, "We should be able to last 6 or 7 days if we only drink half a bottle each day." I noticed that my voice still had a slight tremor in it. I tried to cover it up. "For the food, we could last maybe 4 or 5 days, give or take a day."

"So that means that we should find a good source of water and food in the next 4-5 days." Fury stated.

"yeah." We all muttered signs of agreement. There was an awkward pause as we stood, trying to figure out what to do.

Suddenly, Rogers said, "Hey did everyone get their weopons and whatever else they need for fighting?"

Everyone nodded. I saw that everyone had their respectable weapons (well except for Bruce of course).

"Good." Another awkward pause.

Then Clint spoke up. "Wait, I have a question." He paused as if waiting for an invitation to ask his question. When no one said anything, he continued.

"Did you all get here through that weird black hole?"

Scattered yeahs came from the group once again.

"All right, just making sure I'm not crazy."

"Did everyone see Loki on one the podiums?" Bruce asked the next question.

Again, everyone said yes.

"We should look out for him. Make sure he doesn't come in our way. I'm pretty sure we all don't want another incident happening." Fury said. Just as he was about to open his mouth to say something else, Thor's voice came out of the blue.

"we should depart now, if we were to find water and food quickly." He had probably wanted to change the subject.

"wait." I said suddenly, surprising myself.

Everyone turned to look at me. I went over to my suitcase that was my also my armour. I laid it down on the ground so that fist holes appeared in the armour. I formed my hands into fists and put them in the respective holes. I brought my arms up and the chest plate latched onto my chest. The rest of the suit followed, and in no time flat I was encased in the red and silver iron man armour.

"Hey, this armour looks different." Rogers observed.

"Yeah, apparently the people who run this thing brought my old armour instead of my latest one." I shrugged from inside the armour. "This'll have to do, I guess."

"What are you doing, Stark?" Fury asked, annoyed.

"Well, I thought it was pretty obvious that I was putting on my armour." I smirked.

The face plate clanked down and the bluish screen was now in front of me.

"JARVIS, scan the entire desert for any sign of food or water."

"_Yes sir."_

There was a pause as JARVIS scanned.

"_Sir, it appears to be that there is no sign of any life forms at all. In normal deserts there are at least some forms of life, but it appears not in this one."_

"There's not even any cacti?"

"_No sir."_

I was dumbfounded. How could there be no food or water at all? How were we going to survive?

"Ok, JARVIS, scan the entire desert again. How big is it?"

There was another pause. Then…

"_The desert seems to go for a 20km radius. Then the signal stops and I can't read anything past that. I think that you are in a very big domed arena because I can't read anything more that a 20km radius in the sky as well."_

Of course. This is a fighting arena. Of course they wouldn't let us rome around in the wild. The people who run this, they probably control the entire arena, making things happen whenever they want to.

"So there is no food or water at all?" I asked just to make sure I wasn't hearing things.

"_No sir."_

Oh no.

"Deactivate the suit JARVIS." The suit started to disassemble itself from around me until it formed back into its transportable briefcase. I had added that feature a while ago so that it was voice controlled.

I looked at the avengers. They were all looking at me with worried expressions on their faces.

"Guys, I have some really bad news."

"What…" Bruce said slowly.

"There is absolutely no wildlife in this desert. That means not food or water.

**Dun dun dun….**

**Cliffhanger!**

**So how'd you like that. That should shed some light on whats going to happen in this story.**

**I love all the reviews guys and please, keep reviewing!  
-Detective DG  
**


	5. Chapter 5

**The fourth chapter is now ready!**

**This might be a little shorter than the last chapter, but then again the last chapter was long and I'm proud of it!**

**Anyways, let's get on with the story!**

**-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-**

Percy POV

4

3

2

1

…0

Quiet. Then…

Someone screamed and everything erupted into an explosion of sound. People ran like crazy over to the cornucopia. I saw the rest of the camp half blood campers that were thrusted into this effed up game as well, all running toward the cornucopia.

I should have suspected as much. I couldn't have good luck for that long anyways; something bad was bound to happen. Last year, everyone's lives had been in danger from the war with kronos. Now their lives were in danger yet again. At least in the last war, we knew who the enemy was.

The thing that surprised me was when I saw Luke in the circle of tributes. It was just a little bit strange considering he _died_ last year. How could he have just gotten up and became alive once again?

Him _being_ there wasn't the only strange thing. When the game keepers had finally said zero, I looked around to all the half bloods. I saw everyone-except Luke. He had just disappeared. Everything about Luke was exactly the way at was when he was alive. He had his sandy blond hair, his scar, everything. He couldn't be a ghost could he?

Though, since he _was _alive, he could be an addition to our little team. The rest of us had already had an unspoken decision that we would team up of course. But since I couldn't see him anywhere at all, I doubted he was good at all. After all, these gamekeepers would at least put someone that was our enemy here. They wanted a show. The so called "avengers" probably had an enemy here too.

-'-'-'-'-'-'-'-'-'-'-'-'-

As soon as zero had been called, I ran from my podium. I didn't have a moment's hesitation. I knew exactly what to do, and I was going to do it. I've been in too many battles to know never to hesitate.

As I was just about to go over to the cornucopia to get my sword, I looked over to Annabeth who had been across from me in the circle of tributes, and saw that she was still standing on her platform, not making a move to get off. I looked over to the rest of the half bloods and saw that they were already at the cornucopia, getting their things.

"Hey prissy, get over here!" I could tell who that gruff voice belonged to without even looking-Clarisse.

I ignored her and ran toward Annabeth. I had to get to her before somebody else stole her knife from the cornucopia.

After what felt like an eternity, I finally got to Annabeth.

She was wearing a gray jumpsuit that matched the colour of her eyes perfectly. She had an owl on her jumpsuit that also matched her owl earrings. I saw that she had a blank stare on her face, whilst looking at the cornucopia.

I put my hand on her shoulder. She looked at me startled, as if she just noticed that I was there. She shook her brain like she was trying to clear her head.

"Lets go." I said softly.

I pulled her away from the podium and we both ran to the cornucopia. She seemed to have gotten over her temporary shock.

Once we got there, I looked around frantically for my pen, and Annabeth's knife. There were only a handful of people at the cornucopia now. I hoped with all my life that no one had taken our weapons.

Finally, on a table in the corner of the cornucopia, I saw riptide. I shoved the pen into one of the pockets of my jumpsuit as I looked around for Annabeth who was looking for her knife as well. She was looking for it at a table where two men, one who looked really muscular, and another who looked strangely familiar and with a strange looking goatee, were picking up a strange shield.

The muscular man had picked up the shield, and now the other man was pointing vaguely in Annabeth's direction. I ran over to Annabeth as I uncapped my sword. I didn't want them, doing anything to Annabeth. They could be friendly, but I could never know here. I didn't know these people, and for all I knew, they could be the enemy. I didn't want to take my chances.

As I got over to them, I raised my sword over the man with the goatee, about to slash down, hard. The man didn't seem to react much. Either he didn't notice or he didn't care much. The other man did notice though. With the reflexes of a cheetah, he brought his shield in between my sword and the man's head. There was a loud bang as my sword and his shield connected.

I glanced back at Annabeth behind me. I noticed that she now had her knife in her hand. I didn't want to get involved with the other two men anymore, so I doubled back to Annabeth, picked up a few items from the table beside her and I grabbed her hand as we ran away from the cornucopia.

We ran as far as we could from the cornucopia. I couldn't see where the other two men had gone, and I honestly didn't care much. The bad news was, that I didn't know where any of the Half Blood's had went either. There was no one in sight at all.

"Where is everyone?" Annabeth asked frantically as we finally stopped once we had gotten far enough away.

"I don't know. When I went for you, I think they left. I couldn't find them."  
"This is bad. Really bad." Annabeth said.

I turned around slowly, taking in the entire desert and saw nothing. No cacti, no animals, nothing at all. It would be hard, next to impossible to get food or water around here.

"If we lost them, we'll just have to trust that they'll survive for a while. Right now, I think we should worry about us being able to survive."

I laid out all the items I had gotten from the table, in a row on the ground. Annabeth did the same.

"Ok, so we have two water bottles, a backpack, you're sword, my knife, and four bags of food." Annabeth calculated. "Let's see what's in the backpack."

I looked at the blue backpack on the floor and picked it up, messing up the line of items on the floor. I unzipped the bag and peered inside. Inside was a gun, another full water bottle, a weaved bowl, a pillow, and a blanket. Unfortunately, no food.

"So, we could last six days for sure on those three water bottles. Probably the same amount for the food if we ration it." Annabeth stated. "We can share the blanket and pillow. If this was even a bit like a normal desert, it would get really cold at night. The weaved bowl to hold food…and the gun," she picked it up and clacked it. "Always useful."

By the end of her little speech, I was looking at Annabeth in amazement.

"Whoa." I said.

She smirked. "Don't I know it?"

I smirked back at her, punching her playfully in her arm.

"Whatever you say…" I trailed off as I got an idea. "You know what? I think we should pick a direction we want to go in and start walking in that direction. Maybe if we walk far enough, we'll get somewhere." I suggested.

Annabeth thought about the idea for a while, until she finally said, "That's actually a good idea seaweed brain! That's a first."

"Hey, I'm full of ideas!"

"Whatever you say seaweed brain."

"Don't call me that!" I snapped.  
"Sure seaweed brain."

I sighed, defeated, and said, "Fine whatever, let's go…," I turned around in a circle and stopped suddenly pointing in a direction in the desert, "that way."

Annabeth shrugged and said, "Sure."

I picked up the backpack and put the water bottles and food in it and slung it over my shoulder. Five minutes later, Annabeth and I started walking into the desert.

As we walked, I had a strange feeling of dread in my mind. I couldn't place it, so I ignored it, only focusing on the hope I had of finding food, water, or maybe even the other campers.

**There we have it!**

**I know its short, but I promise the next one will be longer!**

**In other news, my USB broke! Now all my files are gone! Yippee! *sarcasm* I had to write this chapter a second time it was soo annoying. Even all my school files are all gone and I have to type them all over again. **

**Stupid good for nothing Duracell USB…**

**Anyways until next time folks!**

**-detective DG**


	6. Chapter 6

**Hey again fanfiction world. **

**Wow. I'm actually updating regularly! I actually never thought I would. I underestimate myself sometimes. **

**Here's the next chapter. And keep up with those reviews guys! I really love reading reviews.**

**Now here's the next chapter.**

Bruce's POV

"What?!" I asked bewildered.

Tony had taken off his armour. Probably so that he wouldn't waste his energy in the warmth of the desert. I didn't think that this armour had all the upgrades his latest armour had.

"I said that there's no food or water in this place. Didn't you here me the first time?" tony said.

I ignored his comment.

"I know this is a desert, but there can't just be nothing here! A lot of animals and plants make their habitats in deserts. And the big question. How are we going to survive?" my palms were sweating now. "We're going to die in this desert! Without any water we'll die in three days! We have no chance of surviving!"

I saw some of the avengers flinch at that sentence, but I didn't care. I was in full panic mode by now. I was sweating and my heartbeat was erratic-I could feel it thudding through my temples. I could also feel the hulk right under my skin. I knew I had to calm down or else I would hulk out, but I just couldn't.

"Bruce, please calm down!" I heard Steve say. For some reason, he thought that stating the obvious would help me calm down somehow. It did the complete opposite.

I turned on him and let out a small, deep growl that I couldn't hold in anymore.

"Calm! I am calm!" I shouted in his face. He took a couple steps back, startled.

When I saw his face and noticed the flickers of fear in his eyes, I realized that I had to calm down or I would put my teammates in even more danger then they already were in. I would lose what little trust they had in me.

Right now though, I was beyond reason. Seeing the fear in his eyes made me a tinge bit angrier. In the corner of my mind, I knew it was wrong to get angry at them for being scared at me, but my primitive emotions were taking over. The thoughts about how everyone was always fearful of me made me even angrier. I couldn't stop the thoughts from entering my brain. Though, in my subconscious I knew that they were right to be angry.

I looked down at my hands and saw that they were starting to turn green. I could feel the beginning of a transformation coming on. No! This couldn't happen now!

I clenched my fists and doubled over, trying to contain the monster. I grunted as I mentally shoved him back inside of my head, and put up my mental barriers, trying to capture him in the cage that was my head. I took short, sharp breaths in and out. The pain was deafening as I tried to stop the cells that made the hulk, from forming. Slowly the green tinge from my hands went away, and the pain became less intense. I slowly uncurled my hunched form and stood straight, relaxing a tiny bit.

I was drenched in a cold sweat. My jumpsuit was sticking uncomfortably to my body. I knew that wasn't good. Having a cold sweat in the middle of a hot desert, but I ignored it for the time. I was exhausted, both mentally and physically. I almost fell over, but I felt a hand steady me. I looked up to see Tony, helping me sit down in the hot sand.

Everyone circled around me. Even though I knew they meant well, I could see the fear in their eyes and how Fury, Barton, and Natasha had their hands ready to take their weapons out on me at any time.

I took off my glasses, closed my eyes and pinched the bridge of my nose. I truly was exhausted-more tired then I would be after a full transformation. I could still feel the hulk in mind, roaring to get out.

"Hey, you okay?" Natasha asked softly.

"Do I look okay to you?" I snapped.

She took a quick step back. No, she didn't understand! This wasn't me!

"AAAAARGH!" I let out a scream of frustration as I gripped my hair tightly. It was slowly killing me from the inside to always keep a lid on my emotions. I was like an empty shell with a monster inside.

I was always being cautious. I could never truly be myself, or trust myself with this…thing inside of me. I could never get angry because if I did, I would endanger everyone around me. I couldn't even have a proper panic attack! Eventually, I thought, that it would kill me having all these bottled up emotions in me. One day, I would finally break apart and on that day, all hell would break loose.

I thought of these things as I was gripping my hair. For now, I convinced myself that I could hold on. I had to hang on, I had no choice.

_I will hang on. I will hang on. I will hang on._

I repeated those words again and again. I didn't know for how much longer I could do this, but for now I bottled up those thoughts deep in subconscious just like I've done with everything else.

For I had no choice.

After a few minutes with my head buried in my hands, I finally looked up at the rest of the team.

I sighed and said, "look guys, I'm really, really sorry. I almost got you all killed."

I felt a hand slam me in the back, hard. The impact pushed me forward into the sand. I stopped myself from having my face impact with the hot sand by pulling my arms out in front of me. I could literally feel everyone's sharp intake of breath as they waited in fear for me to finally turn into the hulk, but for some reason, that didn't set me off.

I could tell who had done it before I even saw his face.

I turned around sharply to see tony just as I had suspected. I gave him the most evil glare I could muster up.

"What did you do that for?" I asked in a pitch that was a little higher than normal.

"What the hell Banner?" he said ignoring my question. "What do you got to be sorry for? It's not your fault that sometime you can't control yourself. It's not your fault you're the hulk. It's not your fault. Now come on, or we're never going to find water in this place." I could see him flinch as he said 'this place', but he quickly covered it with one of his fake smiles.

He held out a hand in front of my face. I remembered when I did this to him when we first arrived here. That brought a small smile to my face. I looked at his hand for a few seconds, then took it and hoisted my self up. I swayed a little on my feet, still a little winded, but Tony steadied me.

I brushed the sand off my clothes awkwardly. I stood there, trying to think of something to break the awkward silence, but nothing came.

"Are you guys just going to stand there, or are we going to leave now?" Tony's voice came out of the blue, effectively breaking the awkward silence. He has a way of making awkward situations a lot less awkward.

Everyone turned away as if nothing had happened and muttered signs of agreement. We al gathered our things. Me, the backpack and my pulse keeping watch. The first thing I had spotted on a table in the cornucopia had been this watch. It looked like the same exact one Betty had given to me. As soon as zero had been said, I made a beeline over to that table. I got there really quickly-my adrenaline had really been pumping.

That wasn't the only strange thing. Something else had happened just then. Even though I was panicky and worried and I could feel the other guy right under my skin, he didn't come out. It was if he was there and he also wasn't at the same time. I could feel him and me both. It was like we were one in the same. Not two separate things. Just one person as a whole. For once, we worked together and I didn't change.

That was why I had been able to run so fast to the cornucopia, and growl at will to anyone who got in my way. Because the other guy was in my head, yet I could still think logically.

It was a very strange feeling. I could here the hulk's thoughts, but still know that I was controlling my own body. I didn't even know it was possible to do that, yet I had done it. I didn't tell anyone about it. I would eventually, but for now it would stay my secret.

Then, a thought hit me. If I could actually do that, I could have the power of the hulk without turning into the mindless monster. I could still be myself, but with the power of the hulk.

I could be invincible.

Stronger than Thor, as smart as Tony and even have the stealth of Clint and Natasha if I trained. That would be amazing. Not having to worry about getting angry all the time, or losing control and killing everyone in proximity of me. Having full control…

"…Yoo hoo! Anyone in there? Earth to the big guy!" someone was waving their hand in front of my face. Of course it was Tony.

"Huh?" I looked around to see everyone staring at me yet again, with all their things ready.

"Oh, I just got lost in thought, I guess."

"Well, get lost in your thoughts some other day. Right now, we have to move." Steve ordered.

"Right…" I muttered.

I picked up my backpack that I just realized was still on the floor, along with my watch. I put it on my right wrist, the one I felt more comfortable with. The moment I put it on, the watch started beeping. I stared at it in confusion. The watch only beeped when my heart rate was in the danger zone. So why was it beeping when I was perfectly (or at least mostly) calm?

I tried to hide it behind me so that no one would notice and get worried, but it was already too late.

"What is that inferior beeping noise?" Thor asked.

Everyone turned in unison to me.

"Is that your watch, Banner?" Fury asked.

"Why's it beeping?" Clint questioned.

I ran a hand through my hair.

"I don't know. Maybe it's…broken?" I said, but I didn't believe myself. It didn't look broken at all. It was perfectly fine.

"If you say so." Clint said hesitantly.

"Stupid watch." I muttered under my breath.

"Come on let's go," I said out loud. I started waking ahead of everyone to try and distance myself from the rest and it worked. No one bothered me by asking more questions, or by walking beside me. I just started walking in a direction in the desert and didn't stop, lost in my thoughts once again, hoping that the rest were following but then again, not really caring.

I thought about what had happened in the cornucopia once more. How come that hadn't happened when I panicked just now? I had almost changed then.

Also, when we did become one person, it was on accident. I didn't think that I would be able to do that on purpose. I wondered, would some kind of chemical concoction induce me into that middle state? I couldn't think of any that could. I could maybe invent something when we got back to Stark towers.

That is, if we ever do get back.

No banner! Don't think like that. You'll only panic again. And I had a feeling that the next time I lost control, I would unleash the other guy for sure.

I sighed and looked into the distant horizon. The sun was setting and was making the sky a beautiful orange and red colour. That was maybe the only good thing in this place.

I guessed that waiting and seeing would be the only to know for sure if I would be able to actually control the hulk.

So for now, we walk into the desert sunset, not knowing the horrors to come.

**Wow**. **Im actually proud of this chapter.**

**I hope you guys think it's good too! **

**Oh and I always forget this…but I don't own the avengers or Percy Jackson! Oh the things I would do if I did…**

**Anyway, please read and REVIEW!**

**-Detective DG**


	7. Chapter 7

**Hey guys, I'm back after a while.**

**The reason I took so long to update this is because I had put up another one shot story, because I wanted to take a little break from writing this. **

**The story's called "Bonding" if you guys want to check it out. For now it's basically a one shot about the team bonding. You should check it out.**

**So anyways, let's get on with the story.**

Luke's POV

I had escaped, but just barely.

Just as the number zero was said, I ran as fast as I could to get to the tables. I had grabbed my sword, backbiter, a water bottle, a random blanket lying beside the water bottle, and finally a bag filled with some type of food that I had no clue about. After getting those particular objects, I ran as fast as I could away form the cornucopia while all the other half bloods had just got to the tables. I didn't want to attract much attention to myself, so I had to leave as quickly as I could.

Honestly, I have no fricken' clue as to how I got here. The last thing I remember is joining Kronos. There was a bright golden light, and then nothing at all. The next thing I know, I'm in this place.

When that strange, disembodied voice had been taking, I was looking around at everyone else who was there. Well, most importantly the half bloods.

I looked around and saw everyone that I had made enemies of. That blundering idiot Percy Jackson, Grover the dimmest goat alive, Rachel, Nico that ghost boy, and finally Annabeth.

When my eyes came around to look at her, I realized that she was already looking right at me. She made no move to look away when I saw her. Her eyes were wide and she was staring at me like she had seen a ghost. After what felt like a really long time, she looked down, and could just see a glimpse of disappointment in her eyes.

I didn't care.

I had held her gaze coldly, staring back at her feeling nothing.

I didn't need her.

I didn't need any of the half bloods. I could win this by myself, now that I have Kronos…

Wait a minute.

I don't think I _do_ have Kronos.

I could think by myself.

I could control myself.

I couldn't feel anyone inside of me, taking up my personal space like how I thought would feel like if you were possessed by someone else. That meant that Kronos wasn't inside of me, controlling me…

Good.

I could do this by myself. I didn't need Kronos's evil thoughts fuelling me. I had my own.

So I fled, with no thought in mind of joining the other half bloods. Especially not Annabeth. Not when she had betrayed me by not joining me. I would do this by myself. I could win this stupid game by myself.

I didn't need anyone.

So like that, I ran.

Blanket and in it, the food and water bottle in one hand, and backbiter in the other.

I risked a glance behind me as I was running. In the distance, I saw the cornucopia with everyone in chaos. It was a mess. People were everywhere, trying to collect their things. That didn't matter to me. I didn't need to care for anyone, unless they were running after me, which thankfully no one was because no one had seen me. I had made sure of it.

Once I thought I was a safe distance away, I stopped for a minute to catch my breath. I bent down, hands on my knees trying to regain my breath. I tossed my sword and blanket on the floor as I stood up straight again. I went over everything I knew about this place.

Basically, we have to kill everyone in sight until you were the only person left hence, you would be the winner. I could do that. Killing the half bloods will be like getting revenge on them for all they did to me.

After I killed them, I would move on to the avengers. That would be a piece of cake even if they were these so called "superheroes". I scoffed. Superheroes? My ass.

Next I went over the things I had with me. I hadn't really paid attention to what I had gotten from the tables. I had just picked up whatever I could get my hands on. I looked at the things on the ground and realized that what I had was not nearly enough.

I only had one water bottle, one bag of food, one blanket and my sword.

I could survive maybe two days tops with this stuff, considering that I didn't find any food or water here. I bet the others had way more with them to survive.

And by the looks of this place, I was seriously doubting if there was any life here at all. I think that _might_ be a problem, I thought sarcastically. No life equals no water. No water means no animals, and no animals for me means only two more days to live.

Not very good news.

I picked up my sword and ran a finger across the sharp double edge. It was, of course razor sharp like always. This sword would be very useful in these games. From what I figured, _most_ of the avengers were human. This would kill them just fine.

As for the half bloods, I had celestial bronze reserved just for them.

Next I picked up the blanket with the water bottle and little baggy of food in it. I would have to make the most of the water and food to survive at least two days.

I had decided to keep walking in the same direction I had ran away form the cornucopia. After all, what other choice did I have?

The sun was setting in the distance. I was surprised that it set so early. Either it set early, or I had lost track of my time. I was thinking the latter because, for a demigod, losing track of time was a norm. The sunset would've even been pretty, if I wasn't so worried about the idea of dying from food or water withdrawal.

I walked on for what seemed like at least two hours. I had taken one small sip of water, just refraining from drinking the whole thing. I hadn't even opened the bag of food, in danger of finishing it all too soon.

Once it had gotten dark, it had also gotten cold. So cold that I had to wrap myself up with the blanket to stop my teeth from chattering violently. I hadn't even thought it was possible for a desert to even get this cold. I could even see my own breath in front of me.

After about another hour of stumbling around in the cold and darkness, I had decided to give up for the night. To keep on walking would just be futile, as I wouldn't be getting anywhere, except for more dessert. Since I couldn't even anything anywhere, I had no choice but to lay on the cold sand in my blanket.

I dropped to the ground and tried to get comfortable in my blanket, but it was impossible to be comfortable on cold sand. I placed all my belongings beside me inside my blanket, trying to save what little heat I had. Thankfully, it did get a little warmer from using the blanket, so I wasn't as cold as I had been while walking around. In fact, I could even go as far to say that I was actually warm, but that would be exaggerating a little.

I hoped that no one would sneak up to me while I was sleeping, but I had learned from experience that I was a fairly light sleeper. I awoke with the slightest of noises, and of course, I would use that to my advantage.

So I lay in my blanket as comfortable as I could, in the middle of a cold desert, thinking that I could never be able to sleep with everything that was going on.

I was wrong.

After a fairly short while, my eyes started to drift into sleep and soon I was sleeping soundly.

Well, not so soundly.

A dream began at the worst time.

I waited for the worst as I tumbled into the black pit of the dream and knew no more.

**Now, I know this is a bit short, but it's kind of like a filler chapter.**

**And I know not much action is happening, but I need to get this all set up for the real action to start! ;)**

**Now you guys know what happened to Luke! Youll need to wait for maybe 3 chapters to know what Luke's dream is. Trust me, you will be very surprised! Ive got it all planned out!**

**So anyways guys, READ AND REVIEW!**

**-Detective DG**

**P.S. and keep being awesome!**


	8. Chapter 8

**So I'm back with another chapter.**

**I really hope you guys are liking my story, and that its not too confusing because of the difference in point of views. If it is, drop me a review and just prompt me about it.**

**And thanks for all the reviews guys! Your all awesome!**

**That's all!**

****Thalia POV.

"Damn it! Where the hell are they?" I asked aloud.

Nico A.K.A. death breath, Rachel the oracle, Grover the goat boy and I were all standing around in the desert without knowing how we had got here.

Unfortunately without Percy or Annabeth.

We had lost them in the chaos of the cornucopia.

Now, we were all standing in the middle of nowhere, trying to find out what to do.

"I saw Prissy running to Annabeth when I first got to the cornucopia. I didn't see the both of them after that," Clarisse's gruff voice said.

"Did anyone else see them?" I asked.

No one answered.

"Damn!" I spat.

We had all ran as soon as we got our weapons and some supplies. We all had assumed (including me) that Percy and Annabeth would follow us when they got their weapons, but it didn't happen like that. We had left without them.

I took a deep breath in and said "Ok…" I tried to recollect myself by going over all the things that we already had with us.

I had my pack of hunter bow and arrows with me, as well as my spear. Clarisse had her spear, maimer, or as I like to call it, lamer. Death Breath over there had his stygian iron sword, and Grover obviously had his reed pipes with him. Rachel, since she didn't have a weapon of choice had grabbed a gun and a knife.

For supplies, we didn't get much. I had only gotten one water bottle because I had been too busy getting both of my weapons. Clarisse had gotten a backpack with two water bottles and two blankets in it. Nico had one Ziploc bag of what looked like some type of dried meat. Grover had gotten one more water bottle and a plastic bag filled with some sort of strange fruit. Unfortunately, for us it would probably go bad in a day or two. Finally, Rachel had gotten a tiny satchel full of dried fruits and nuts. The water would last us maybe three or four days. The food? Even less.

Like I said, not much.

"So what should we do now?" Grover voiced what everyone else was probably thinking.

I didn't have to think hard about my answer. Of course there was not much we could do, so I said, "We should keep walking." I pointed in the direction in front of me. "Let's walk that way. I don't think there's much else to do now, is there?" I laughed bitterly as I gathered all of my things. The others didn't argue with my logic, so they followed my lead gathering their own things.

After five minutes, we had all of our things ready and we started walking in the direction I had pointed in.

It didn't seem like there was anything at all in this desert. I hadn't seen any animals or plants at all since we had started walking. That, I thought was pretty strange. I was pretty sure that these gamekeeper people, whoever they were didn't want us all to be dying so quickly. They probably wanted a show with us. I doubted that they wanted us to be dying from lack of food or water.

That was why I thought that if we walked far enough away, we would eventually get to someplace that had the food and water we needed. With that in mind, our little band of half bloods walked into the desert with me leading the way.

A few minutes later, a thought hit me. To get water, I could very well try to form a thunderstorm. That could maybe provide us with the water we needed! I almost jumped with joy. How did I not think of this earlier? It was so obviously simple. I had realized a long time ago that if I summoned a powerful enough thunderstorm, rain would come down as well. I tried to do it as rarely as possible, as not to anger Poseidon, but right now I thought that it was emergency enough to risk it.

I turned around and stopped the others. I told them my plan and they replied by saying that I should try it.

So I stood a few ways away, held out my arms and closed my eyes. I concentrated on the lightning first. The sky steadily got darker as the lightning formed in the clouds. A flash of lightning came down not too far from where I was standing. Next, I concentrated on the thunder. A few moments later, the thunder boomed in the sky. The sound grew steadily louder by the second, until it was so loud I felt my own bones shaking.

Finally, I concentrated on the rain. I thought of rivers and downfalls, and simply anything that had to do with water, just like I thought Percy would do when he needed to summon water. Though, unlike the thunder and lightning, the rain never came.

I scrunched my eyes shut so hard that I could see white spots in the darkness behind my eyes. My hands slowly started shaking as I concentrated even more, but for some reason, the rain didn't come. I finally gave up as I opened my eyes and lowered my shaking arms.

"Its no use," I said, breathing heavily. "The water won't come."

I felt a hand on my shoulder as someone walked over to me. It was Nico. He silently smiled a sad smile and started to walk ahead of me. That was enough to get me walking too. Sometimes, Nico's actions spoke a lot louder than his words.

I gave into the sweltering heat of the desert as the sun cam back to mock us. We had to keep walking, because really, there wasn't much else we could do.

That thought alone would be enough for me to give up, but I kept going, thinking that I had to do this for the rest of the Half Bloods and to try and find Percy and Annabeth.

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It was an hour later and we were still walking. We hadn't found _anything_ at all. Not one single thing. By now I was getting really worried (not that I wasn't worried before, but you get the deal).

In fact, I was damn near close to a full panic now. The only reason I didn't actually panic, was because I didn't want to show weakness in front of the others. What leader would I be then? So I willed myself to stay strong, for the sake of everyone else.

In the past hour, Clarisse, and Grover both had taken one sip of water. We were all trying to drink as less water as we could without becoming dehydrated. Though, I could still feel myself getting dehydrated slowly, I restrained myself from taking a sip of water. We had to make this water last. I would drink when I was on the floor, dying of thirst. Then, and only them would I drink from the bottle. The others might think it was a little harsh, but it was something I had to do.

A few minutes later, Nico came up from behind me. He was wearing a midnight black jumpsuit, which I had no idea how he could stand being in, in the harsh sun on the desert. He must've been burning hot, but he sure didn't show it. I bet his hands were still cool to the touch. Probably another thing that came with being the son of Hades.

"Hey," He said.

"Hey."

"You all right?" he asked with genuine concern laced into his voice

I huffed, annoyed. Was it really his business to know? "Why wouldn't I be fine?" I snapped.

Nico looked down and we continued walking in silence. I could tell he was hurt.

I sighed. "Hey, I'm sorry…I just can't believe this is all happening. Why does it always happen to us?" I questioned.

Nico looked back up at me with that sad smile on his face that showed he had seen too much for his young age.

"I guess that was the way things were meant to be," he said in a quiet, sad tone.

I sighed and walked in silence once again.

The silence was interrupted not long after with a voice.

"Guys, it almost sunset." It was Rachel.

I looked up at the sky and noticed that it had gotten to be a beautiful orange and red colour.

"It's beautiful," I muttered.

A few minutes later, it started to get dark as night fell upon us.

"I don't think we should be wandering around in the dark," Grover said worriedly.

"I think we should," said Nico in an attempt to make a joke.

I glared at him even though it was too dark for anyone to tell.

"He's right," I agreed "We should set up camp with whatever we have."

Clarisse and Rachel muttered signs of agreement.

Once we had set up "camp", we decided to take a sip of water each and a few bites of the fruit that we had gotten. It turned out that the fruit tasted a lot like watermelon, and thankfully had a lot of water in it.

It was good.

Once we had all ate, we had to settle underneath the blankets because it had actually gotten really colder as night fell. Rachel and I shared one blanket while Clarisse and Grover had the other. The blankets were pretty big, so we fit underneath them easily. Nico didn't say anything and just lied down on the cold ground, blending into the darkness of the night. I had gotten used to his strange antics a long time ago.

Once we had settled down, and I had put my weapons down beside me, I was calm enough to close my eyes.

A little while later, I drifted into a restless sleep.

**Well, there you have it. Yes, this is also a short chapter, but I promise the next one will be longer!**

**Remember to read and review!**

**-Detective DG**


	9. Chapter 9

**Hey once again.**

**So in case you guys forgot what happened to Percy and annabeth in their last chapter, they were just about to start wandering into the desert. Now, there has been a little time lapse between then and now. In this chapter, night has already fallen.**

**So anyways, before I say anything else, let's just get on with the chapter. If it feels random in the beginning, it's because he's in a dream.**

Percy's POV

_It was dark. So dark._

_And cold. So cold. _

_I couldn't see anything. I couldn't even tell if I was standing on solid ground or not. A strong breeze was present throughout the entire place I was in, wherever that was. I had no idea where I was. All I knew was that it was so dark and so cold. _

_A couple of minutes of standing in the frigid air made me start to shiver. I had gotten disoriented because of my eyes not being able to focus on anything in the darkness. _

_A while of standing and finally, something happened. It was very sudden and almost made me jump in surprise. Everything around was slowly turning to a bright green and in a matter of minutes, I saw a picture in front of me._

'_Ok', I thought. 'Either I'm hallucinating or I've finally gone crazy.'_

_I was hoping it was neither. _

_I looked at the vision in wonder. It was an entire forest, buzzing with the sounds of animals and wildlife. Wildlife meant water. Wherever this place was, it had water. _

_Then, as quickly as the vision had come, it disappeared, and I was plunged into the everlasting darkness once again. _

_As I waited for something, anything else to happen, a strange, almost wispy voice that sounded like the wind echoed through the darkness._

"_You will meet here with strangers and foes alike. In order to survive, you will need to join forces with the avengers, or else all will be lost. Search to gain or it will all be in vain." _

_The last word was lost in the wind, as if the darkness had swallowed the voice. As soon as I couldn't here an echo anymore, the ground I was standing on started to tremble and vibrate. I could feel hair like cracks appear beneath my feet as the trembling grew more ferocious. I tried to stay upright, but couldn't for long. _

_I soon lost my balance and fell to the ground. _

_Though, my body didn't touch ground as I fell. Instead, it was met with air as I tumbled into the darkness._

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I woke with a start. I bolted upright from my position on the sandy ground. My heart was eating a mile a minute and my breathing was laboured.

As I took time to calm down, I sighed in relief. It had all been a dream. I still felt cold though, as if it had actually been physically real.

I looked around. The first thing I noticed was that it was actually morning. The sun was in the sky, though I could tell that it hadn't been up there for a long time because it was still fairly cold.

The second thing I noticed was that Annabeth was awake. She was beside me, looking at me with a worried expression on her face.

"Dream?" she asked softly.

"Yeah."

She waited in brief silence for me to tell her the dream. I sighed and told her about it reluctantly, from the cold and darkness to the strange voice.

I told her, "The voice said that we should meet at a forest with those avengers. It also said that if we wanted any chance of survival, we have to join forces with them."

I looked over at Annabeth and noticed that she looked like she was deep in thought, so I continued.

"After that, the dream collapsed and I fell into darkness. Then I woke up."

Annabeth didn't say anything for a minute, deep in thought. After that, she finally spoke up.

"Did the voice tell you where exactly to meet?"

"No." I said regretfully.

A pause. "Do you think we should listen to it?"

"Well, considering that that might be the only place in this shithole that actually has water, I say that we don't exactly have much of a choice."

"But how do we get there?! It doesn't look like there's any forest around here!" Annabeth said, exasperated.

"I say we do what we did yesterday and just keep walking. Maybe that way we could eventually get to this place." I suggested.

"Fine. Whatever you say." Huffed Annabeth.

I smirked. "You think that that's a good idea, don't you."

Annabeth glared evilly at me.

"Hah, now I know you think that's a good plan. Score one for Percy Jackson." I fist pumped the air as mock victory.

"Yeah and that's like what, a one in a million chance for you?" Annabeth shot back.

"Whatever." I said, trying to sound hurt. It didn't work.

Annabeth smirked as she started to pick up our things.

Yesterday, we had walked for three hours until sunset, only taking one sip of water every hour. After it started to get dark, it had turned surprisingly cold, so it got a bit difficult to keep walking in the frigid air. That's why Annabeth and I had decided to set up "camp" with the few supplies we had. After we had done that, we snuggled together under the blanket and shared the pillow trying to save body heat. It had gotten considerably warmer after that. And that's when I had gotten the dream.

I got up and helped Annabeth pick up all of our supplies and shove it into my backpack. I checked in the pocket of my jumpsuit and found that my pen-riptide-was still there. Annabeth still had her knife in her hand while the rest of our food and water went into the backpack along with our blanket and pillow.

Annabeth slung the backpack over her shoulder.

"Come on," she said. "We should keep walking."

As Annabeth started to walk in the direction we had been going yesterday, I followed behind her.

"Let's do this." I muttered under my breath.

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It had been approximately two hours since we had started walking, and we were clearly nowhere near our destination. All around us was sand, sand, and more sand. I was sick of looking at the constant yellow of the sun and the sand. We had both finished one entire bottle of water, even though we had been trying to save it. The heat made both us more tired and thirsty than ever. We hadn't talked much during the journey because we had wanted to save as much energy as we could.

I took out a new water bottle from, the backpack that I was now carrying. I twisted it open and gulped down a tiny bit of water. I let it fill my mouth and slowly go down my throat, savouring the little water we had.

The cold water that we had taken from the cornucopia was no longer cold, but only semi cold. It was going to get really warm, really quick. I passed it over to Annabeth and she took a mouthful as well. She closed the cap and handed it over to me.

Just as I was about to put the water back into the backpack, a thought hit me. I, of course was the son of Poseidon, and I could therefore control water. Maybe I could summon water to come to us! That way we could get more water and we wouldn't have to worry about finding water.

How could I have not though about this earlier?! I stopped walking abruptly and opened the cap to the water bottle again.

Annabeth turned around and noticed that I had stopped walking.

"What are you doing?" she asked annoyed.

"I just got an idea. You know how I can control water?" I waited for a response.

"No, that's why they call you the son of Poseidon." She replied sarcastically.

I ignored her comment. "Well, I figured that I could use my powers to summon extra water!" I said excitedly.

Slowly, I could see Annabeth turning more exited.

"How could I have not thought of this before?" she asked to no one in particular and then paused. "Yeah…but remember the last time you called to the water inside of you?"

I remembered the horrible feeling it was when I couldn't make the water to stop coming. I shuddered.

"Yes, but I have to try." I said to Annabeth.

Annabeth didn't protest. She knew that there would be no stopping me now.

I dropped the backpack onto the sandy ground and held the water bottle out in my hand. I closed my eyes and concentrated on anything water related, just like what I had done the last time that I called upon the water inside of me. I raised my arms out in front of me and scrunched my eyes shut in deep concentration.

30 seconds later, my arms started to shake. A dull pounding started to knock away at my head just underneath my eyes.

And nothing happened. No water appeared.

I tried harder, concentrating on the water inside of me. I was one with the water and the water was one with me. And still nothing happened. I couldn't feel the familiar tug in my gut that I usually felt when I used my powers.

Nothing was happening and I didn't know why!

I let out a cry of frustration as I opened my eyes and relaxed my concentration. I saw Annabeth looking at me in concern.

"Nothing happened! It didn't work!" I said in anger. I was breathing heavily, as if I had run a marathon.

Annabeth walked over to me and put a hand on my shoulder. She smiled and said, "Hey. It's all right. Lets just figure out why its not happening."

I calmed down. "Ok." I said as I took in a deep breath.

"Well, let's see…try to swirl the water in the bottle around." Annabeth had her game face on now.

"Okay…" I said slowly as I concentrated on the water in the bottle, and it slowly started to swirl around.

"Well, at least I can do that much." I muttered under my breath.

"Well that means you're powers work," Annabeth said under her breath. "But that still means that you can't summon any extra water."

"Well at least my powers work, right?" I said, not believing myself.

"Yeah, that's good…" Annabeth trailed off. "If we find water that is."

"Well, the only we're going to have a chance at finding any water whatsoever is if we keep moving." I hinted.  
"Yeah, let's keep moving." Annabeth replied.

I placed our water bottle back in the backpack I was holding and slung it over my shoulder once again. Annabeth started to walk into the desert and I tailed behind her as we made our way through the treacherous desert.

.;.;.;.;.;..;;..;.;.;.;.;.;.;.;.;.;.;.;.;.;.;.;.;.;.;.;.;.;.;.;.;.;.;.;.;.;.;.;.;.;.;.;.;.;.;.;.;.;.;.;.;.;.;.;

Once again, we had been walking for seemed like hours and we were nowhere near our supposed destination. By now, we were really tired and almost on the verge of collapsing. Our second water bottle because we couldn't help ourselves to the powerful allure of the sweet water. Still, we had found nothing at all.

After ten minutes though, we did find something. Something big.

"Look over there!" Annabeth exclaimed in excitement as she pointed in the distance.

I looked to where she was pointing and saw a green outline stretching out as far as the eye could see in both directions. I looked closer and realized that it was actually a tree line. My eyes widened in shock. We were here. We had finally made it.

I almost collapsed onto the sand in relief, but I knew that we still had a long way to go. The green was way in the distance. It would take us a while to get there.

"Come on lets keep walking." I said, breathlessly.

.;.;.;.;.;.;.;.;.;.;.;.;.;.;.;.;.;.;.;.;.;.;.;.;.;.;.;.;.;.;.;.;.;.;..;.;.;.;.;.;.;.;.;.;.

When I thought that it would take us a while to get there, I definitely did not think it would take an hour and a half. But an hour and a half it did take us until we were standing, facing the trees.

Annabeth and I stood, debating whether we should go in or not. What if this all was a trap? Well, considering the two options, stay in the desert and starve or dehydrate to death or go into the forest and face whatever monsters were lurking inside, I would rather take my chances with the monsters. If I was going to die, I would like to go out fighting.

Annabeth and I decided to go in, saying that we wouldn't last much longer in the heat and if the other half bloods arrived, we would meet them in the forest.

"That looks thick." Annabeth commented. "Thank you for stating the obvious, Annabeth." I said, while still looking at the trees.

She turned around to glare at me. I ignored it.

"Shall we go in?" I asked.

"Sure."

"Well, ladies first." I said, holding a beckoning hand towards the forest.

Annabeth gave me a dirty look as she crept into the trees. Once I saw that she was inside, I followed her and was soon swallowed by the thick forest trees.

**Now, this is where the real fun starts!**

**Well, actually, the others have to get to the forest and…yeah… but then the fun will start for sure!**

**The next chapter will be Tony's POV, so stay tuned!  
-Detective DG**


	10. Chapter 10

**All right guys, this is going to be a loooong chapter! At least I think it is…**

**Well, anyways I tried baking bread the other day, and it turned out to be the foulest thing I have tasted in my entire life. That taught me never to bake bread, ever. **

**Soooo, lets get on with the chapter!**

**Oh and by the way, there had been a time lapse in this chapter as well and it is now night-time.**

**Aaannd, Tony is having a dream…**

Tony's POV

_I was in the middle of a dark room._

_It was so dark; I couldn't see anything at all. Not even my own hands when I held them out in front of my face._

_I didn't like it dark._

_Ever since Afghanistan happened, I hated the dark. Whenever I slept, my arc reactor would always glow so I was never really in total darkness. Though, now it was different. I couldn't even see the light from my arc reactor. It was as if the darkness was swallowing up any source of light._

_Ironically, just as I though that, a flash of light appeared in the middle of the dark room. I sighed in relief as it appeared. It was almost like a flashlight. I was about to go toward it, when it got brighter until I could see the form of a person sitting on a stool. _

_I looked closer and soon realized that it didn't look very human. It looked almost like a skeleton. I couldn't see the form properly enough to be sure because it was still too dark. The flashlight making the menacing shadows around the room made it all the worse. _

_I inched closer toward the skeleton on the stool. I took a step forward, but was suddenly stopped. I tried to take another stop, but that failed too. It was as if there was an invisible border blocking me from going any closer. I held my hands out in front of me and tried to push through, but it didn't work. I let out a sigh in frustration. I hated the feeling of being trapped._

_I didn't want to accept that so I did what I do best. I talked to the thing on the stool._

"_Hey! You there! Creepy mummy on the stool! Who are you?" _

_The head of the mummy slowly turned to look at me. Its eyes were hollowed and rotting, just like the rest of its body. Its mouth was held tight in a permanent, gruesome grin. I took a step back in surprise, thinking that that was the creepiest thing I've seen in my entire life. And honestly, that's saying something. _

_The mummy's eyes felt like they were drilling holes through my skull with its stare. I wanted to look away so bad, but I just couldn't. It felt like I had no choice but to hold its stare. _

_After what felt like an eternity, a white smoke started to build up all around the skeleton. It got so thick that I was totally engulfed with the smoke a few moments later. I couldn't see the skeleton any more. It fact it had gotten so foggy that I couldn't even see my own feet. I didn't know what to do. _

_I turned around in a full circle, at a complete loss. I hate to admit it, but I was kind of freaking out. I had no clue where I was and I couldn't see anything 5 feet in front of me. _

_Suddenly, as I was just about to give up completely, a raspy metallic voice came from in the mist. _

"_You will meet the Half Bloods in the green forest. There will you only have the chance to survive, or else all will be lost." _

_The raspy voice seemed to come from everywhere and nowhere all at once. I felt like I was being swallowed by the words. The voice kept repeating the words over and over again. I held my hands over my ears, trying to make the voices stop. _

"_Stop…please…" I begged as I sank to my knees with my hands still covering my ears, waiting for the voices to stop. _

_After a really long time, the voices finally stopped and the fog finally cleared. I slowly got up, worried that any sudden movement would make the voices start up again. Thankfully, they didn't. _

_I looked around and realized that the skeleton was gone. I didn't see any shining light, or stool, or well, much of anything really. There was only darkness once again.  
"Creepy." I muttered, trying to fill the darkness and the silence. _

_Just as I was about to step forward, I felt a terrible sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach. I just had enough time to think 'Oh shit, I'm screwed' before I pitched forward into the everlasting darkness. _

…_.._

_Water. There was water all around me. _

_Gunfire. Gunfire as well. _

_Flashes of light came and went as I saw the clips of the events. _

_Yinsen dying in my hands. Saying that I shouldn't waste my life. _

_The water torture they put me through. The feeling of not being able to breath because of the suffocating water, wishing you were dead. _

_Feeling like you were about to die, only to be ripped back into the living hell._

_Getting out of the van and watching all the military officers die around me, knowing it was my fault for making the weapons that caused their death. I was getting hit by my own weapon, thinking that there would be no escape this time. _

_And then there was pain. Pain all around me. I let out a blood curdling screech as I sank to my knees from the pain. It felt as if my entire heart was going to explode from the inside out. I couldn't take it anymore. _

_Just as I was about to give into the pain, it was over. I curled up into a little ball on the ground, shivering from the pain. I could faintly see the flashes of light coming from the scenes above me. _

_Just as my heartbeat was almost back to normal, the pain started again. I couldn't take it anymore, so I let myself go and I slipped into darkness once again._

…_.._

I woke with a strangled yelp.

I bolted upright and my hands clawed at my arc reactor, as if it were still burning. Rogers, Clint and Natasha ran over to me.

"Stark, what happened?" The captain asked.

I blindly threw punches at them for them to get away, but of course none met their mark. They had all taken steps back to give me space.

After a couple minutes, I calmed down enough to realize that it had all been a nightmare. It wasn't real, but it might as well have been. It had seemed so vivid. I felt my heartbeat pounding a mile a minute in my chest.

Natasha, Clint and Steve walked back over to me when they had seen that I calmed down. Thor and Bruce still seemed to be sleeping. Fury was rummaging around with the few things that we had with us. Of course he didn't seem to care about my nightmare. Bruce and Thor it seemed hadn't noticed my yelling.

"Tony. Are you all right?" Cap asked.

"Does it look like I'm all right?" I snapped back at him. He stared at me with a slightly hurt expression on his face.

Finally, I sighed and said, "It was a nightmare…well sort of."

"What happened?" Natasha demanded.

"I was in a dark room and there was this creepy ass mummy. I couldn't see it properly, and it told me to meet the Half Bloods in a green forest. It…it said that that would be our only chance to survive." I shivered. I didn't mention the part about Afghanistan. I would never tell anyone.

Clint broke the silence. "The Half Bloods? You mean those kids?"

"I guess." I replied. I didn't know what could be so special about them.

"And what about the forest? How can there be a forest in a desert?" Rogers asked.

"I-I don't know." I stuttered. I never stuttered. I mentally kicked myself, but I couldn't help it. Rogers had once again reminded me of my own misery.

"Hey you okay?" The cap then asked.

"Of course I'm okay!" I snapped. I got up quickly. I didn't want them asking any more questions.

I turned my back to them. I could still feel their eyes boring into me.

Fury looked over at me, but didn't say anything. His face was blank and void of any expression as usual. I ignored him and bent down to a backpack on the ground. I shuffled around in it, trying to avoid the stares I was getting.

Yesterday night, we had stopped traveling once it had gotten really cold and dark. It was good thing it got cold. It took my mind of the desert for a while.

After half an hour of traveling around blindly in the dark, we had decided to stop for the night. We had set everything we had on the ground in the middle of nowhere and decided to set up "camp", if you could call it that. We shared a bag of chips which tasted a lot like plantain chips and finished half a bottle of water.

After that, everyone slowly dozed of to sleep. Clint and Natasha shared the sleeping bag, capsicle used his shield as a makeshift pillow and Fury claimed the blanket for his own. They all had their weapons close to hand in case something happened.

That left me, Thor and Bruce.

Bruce didn't seem to care much, considering the years he spent on the run and just settled down on the sand, curled up in a ball. Thor soon followed suit and used his cape as a blanket with his hammer beside him.

So I had no choice but to go to sleep on the cold sand, which brought back some bad memories, but I tried to shove them to the back of my mind. I was the last to go to sleep, and even that took a while. I tried using my suitcase of armour as a pillow just like Steve was using his shield, but it was way too uncomfortable. So I gave up and just lay on the sand, trying not to think about of what was going on. Eventually, pure exhaustion brought me to sleep. And that was when I had the dream.

I slowly got up off the ground from rummaging in the bag, hoping that Steve, Natasha and Clint weren't looking at me anymore. I turned around to see that Natasha and Clint were packing up their sleeping bag, while Steve was just staring into the distance with a blank expression on his face. Fury was still in his things, with his ever straight expression that never wavered. I was still a little surprised to see Thor still sleeping, loud snores escaping from his mouth.

Finally, I turned to Bruce. He was also sleeping, but not as calmly as Thor. He tossed and turned on the ground, muttering words that I could barely hear, though I vaguely caught him saying "betty" and "monster".

I bit my lip, contemplating over waking him or not and finally walked over to him in an attempt to wake him up. Steve had noticed me walking toward him and walked over as well. Natasha, Clint and Fury soon followed, and we crowded around Bruce. I knelt down and poked his shoulder.

"Bruce, Bruce, Bruce. Hey big guy! You in there?" I said.

That just made it worse. He turned around violently, back and forth.

"No…" he muttered.

"Bruce! Bruce!"

The rest took a couple steps back. I could tell that they still didn't fully trust Bruce to not hulk out from a bad dream, or something, even though the big guy helped save New York.

I shook him again, and it seemed to do the trick. A little to well, I think.

"NO!" he shouted as he bolted up right from his position on the ground.

The next thing I knew was white hot pain as something hard hit me on the nose. I was thrown back into the sand as Bruce flailed from sheer panic. As I held my hand to my now bleeding nose, I could see Natasha and Clint edge their hands toward their weapons. Fury already had his hand on one of his knives. I could see a tint of green in Bruce's eyes and skin. That watch of his was beeping out of control.

I quickly ran over to him with one hand on my nose. I dropped to the sand beside him and put my free hand on his shoulder."

"Bruce, it's okay. You're with us now. No guns. Nothing." Bruce looked up at me with green streaked eyes. I saw it slowly fade into a hazel. I could feel him calming down as the beeping of the watch subsided, but still held the constant beep for some reason.

Once all the green was gone, he looked down ashamed. He had noticed my bleeding nose. I furrowed my eyebrows.

"Bruce, you know that's not you're fault. If you have even have one thought that it is, I will personally get in my suit and throw you off stark towers." I grinned like a cocky bitch.

"Now come on." I got up and held out the hand that wasn't covering my nose. He graciously took it and pulled himself up. I saw Fury, Natasha and Clint relax considerably.

Bruce looked up at my bleeding nose again and muttered, "Sorry."

I shrugged off his apology.

"It's just a bleeding nose, I've had worse."

I tore off a piece of the shirt I was wearing under my red and gold jumpsuit and used it to cover my nose.

"All right," I said to the others. "Who wants the honour of waking up Thor? 'Cause I'm definitely not."

"Not me," Bruce said quickly. No one objected.

Fury just looked at me with a glare that spoke louder than words.

"You'll see what'll happen if you suggest I wake him." Natasha threatened. I let out a small whimper of fear that I would later deny had ever happened.

"I know a lost case when I see one." Steve said. He had joined in when he heard all the commotion, I thought.

I looked over at Clint.

"That leaves you, Barton."

"But why do I-" He stopped short when he saw that all the others were shooting daggers at him. Natasha pointed at Thor menacingly.

He reluctantly walked over to the sleeping giant.

"Hey! Thor! Wake up!" he shouted over his massive snores.

Clint shoved him in the shoulders as a hard as he could, but Thor wouldn't budge. He resolved to punching him in the arm, but when that didn't work, Clint started to kick him as hard as he could.

"Thor-wake-up!" Clint said between kicks. I watched in amusement with the rest of the avengers, smirking at Clint's puny attempts to wake him up.

Finally, after a long time of punching and kicking, Thor stirred from his slumber. He opened his eyes and said, "Who is this inferior creature that dares awaken the mighty Thor from his slumber?" Thor boomed.

"Uh, it's Clint."

"Oh, friend Clint, why it is you! Why did you not just say so?'"

Clint groaned and face palmed as the rest of us burst out laughing. Thor got up from his spot on the ground and brushed himself off.

"Good morning, fellow avengers!"

Everyone muttered signs of a good morning.

"We should keep moving if we want to get to this mythical green forest you're talking about, Stark." Fury said, talking for the first time this morning. He motioned for everyone to pick up their things.

"Wait, what forest?" Bruce asked, confused.

"Stark had a dream about a mummy telling him to go to a forest where we'll meet the half bloods." Steve answered him.

"You mean those normal looking teenagers?"

"That's what I said." Clint quipped from where he was picking up his bow and arrow.

"Yep."

Bruce nodded, but didn't say anything. If he had a dream about that as well, he sure didn't want to say so.

I picked up my heavy suitcase from the sand, wishing that I had a lighter way of carrying the suit around. Bruce didn't have any weapons to carry, so he picked up the backpack with all of our essential equipment in it, including our blanket, sleeping bag, food, and water.

Once everyone had cleared up the area and made it look like no one had been there in the first place, we started walking into the desert.

I walked with Bruce in the front. Steve and Thor were behind us and behind them, were Clint, Natasha and finally Fury in the very back.

I glanced over at Bruce beside me. He was walking silently, with his eyes to the ground. He was even sulkier than usually was.

"Hey Bruce, you all right?" I asked him.

"Hmm? Oh ye-yeah, I'm good."

I didn't prod, which was probably a first for me. He had just sounded so distracted and heart broken. It was heard to ask more questions. So we kept walking in silence.

I wondered if we were ever going to get back home, to avenger's tower…Pepper. She was probably worried sick by now. I sighed and realized that for now, our chances of getting back were going to be slim. I knew that at least one of us was going to die here, as horrible as it was, and we wouldn't be able to do anything about it.

I sighed again in frustration and only looked forward at the endless sand ahead.

…..

It has been so long. I lost track of the hours that passed long ago. I had no idea where we were and I was sure that I was going to collapse soon from sheer exhaustion. I was stumbling through the dessert just like the rest of the avengers. We had drunk almost a full water bottle in the time that has passed. I looked back at the other avengers and saw that they looked just as tired as I felt. Only Fury didn't look as tired as the rest, but then again he had to be really good at hiding his emotions. After all, like I said, he was the ultimate spy. His secrets have secrets.

I looked around once more to see if there anything in sight if I was lucky and sure enough, there wasn't. Just sand as always. I looked back down at the ground, defeated. Of course there was only going to be sand. Who was I kidding?

We walked for another ten minutes, just like we had been for the hours before.

I reluctantly looked ahead once again, expecting to see the same sand, but this time I saw something…different. In the distance was a faint green line. I squinted my eyes to get a closer look. Slowly, I realized that it was actually a tree line of a forest. I stopped walking abruptly. I felt someone walk into me and I turned around to see Bruce's confused face.

"Guys, you would not believe me if I told you, so I'm just going to tell you to look." I shakily pointed to the green line in the distance.

I heard multiple gasps from our little group. No one could believe it, including me.

"Stark, how come you couldn't sense this forest in your armour?" Fury accused.

"I don't know." I answered, fully bewildered. He was right it didn't appear in my armour. JARVIS had told me there was nothing here, but here we were staring at a forest. There must have been some type of interference between the forest and my armour. There should've been no reason for it to not to register. The gamekeepers must have made some sort of tech scrambling wall so we didn't know it was there.

"Well then, why are we standing here like a bunch of fuckers for? Lets go!" Clint exclaimed.

"Yes friends, let us wander to this sea of green." Thor said.

Clint and Thor led the way and the rest of us followed. We were all hit with new hope. If we could get to this forest, we would be partially home free.

As we were walking, I suddenly remembered my dream. That grotesque mummy had said something about a forest, hadn't it? Yes, now I remember. It said we were supposed to meet the half bloods in this place. That somehow they could help us.

Though, I had a hard time wondering how anyone could help us now.

….

The forest was definitely a lot longer away than it looked. I didn't expect it to take an hour for us to get there. Once we did get there, though, our hopes soared a million fold.

We walked against the trees, looking for a clearing to get in. As we were walking, Bruce voiced a concern I knew everyone were probably thinking.

"You ever wonder if this were a trap?" Bruce's voice was devoid of any emotion or gentleness. It was cold and calculating. It actually sent a shiver down my spine. I guess a life-threatening game will do that to you.

We continued walking. No one said anything because we all knew this could be a very real possibility.

Finally, Fury spoke up.

"Does it look like we have much of a choice here?"

No one answered once again.

Five minutes later, Natasha said, "Hey guys? I think I found a clearing."

We all crowded around the opening in the dense trees. It was small and it looked as if someone else had already gone through it. Though, it was better than nothing.

"Ladies first." Clint said as he beckoned toward the forest.

Natasha shrugged and plunged into the trees. Everyone followed until it was only Bruce and I left.

Bruce glanced at me before he also was swallowed by the trees. I turned around to get one last glance at the desert. I knew that I would have to meet my fears at least once more. After all, we were literally surrounded by dessert.

Until that day came though, I would keep my usual snark as if there was nothing wrong in my life. After all, they probably needed iron man more than they needed me, the ass Tony Stark.

As I sighed at the truth of my words, I stepped into the thicket of the trees and let them swallow me whole.

**Well, here it is. **

**Damn, this is a long chapter! It's a present for all you guys that have reviewed!**

**Next is Luke.**

**-Detective DG**


	11. Chapter 11

**Allright so another chapter.**

**We left off with Luke last time, when he was travelling through the desert and he was just about to go to sleep. Then he fell into a dream. **

**In this chapter you get to find out what that dream is. **

**So, here we go…**

Luke's POV

_I was falling. _

_Falling into a deep darkness. _

_I felt the wind pass by me, ruffling my hair into a mess. I spread my arms out to the side and suddenly, I felt like I was soaring through the air like a bird, free of any burden. I shut my eyes close, trying to relinquish the moment. I sighed into the air, feeling peace roll over me. _

_I knew that people would usually feel fear if they were falling into unknown darkness and were going to land at a distance they did not know, but for me, it was calming. I didn't think of what would happen once I reached the bottom. For once in my life, I was actually calm and at peace. _

_Though, it didn't last long. _

_I looked beneath me and saw a gray stone floor quickly rushing up to meet me. I shut my eyes to prepare for impact, but I didn't feel any. I tentatively opened one eye and saw that I was floating an inch of the floor. It was like I had stopped just seconds before impact. Then I dropped to the floor with a thud. _

_Of course it didn't hurt as I was only an inch of the ground. I wished I was back in the air though. Soaring free like a bird. I envied birds. They could do anything, go anywhere with no worry in the world. They all the freedom they could get. Unlike me of course. _

_I looked around at my surroundings. Everywhere around me was dull and gray. Of course, beneath me was the gray stone floor. I couldn't see any walls, or anything that indicated that I was in some sort of room. I just saw endless gray floor fade into the distance. I slowly walked around, wondering why and where I was. _

_I looked around and soon realized that there was a faint buzzing noise in the background, barely noticeable. I hadn't realized this when I first got here, but now it was clear as day. I steadily got louder as I realized that a shadow of a person was walking towards me. Who was it? It looked like he was wearing a green cape with a strange helmet that looked like it had two horns sticking out of it. _

"_Hello Luke." The person said in a strange, almost British accent. _

_When he got closer, I saw him more clearly. He had black, shoulder length hair that seemed like it had some major amount of gel in it, with blue eyes and a sinister smile. I looked into his eyes and was shocked to see that they were the most cold, calculating eyes that I have ever seen. _

_I took a step back in shock. It was like his eyes were boring into my very soul and extracting every single, darkest secret I ever had. I only noticed later that he was also holding a very strange looking staff in his hand. _

"_Who are you?" I asked, as devoid of emotion as I could get my voice. I didn't want him to think I was intimidated by him but to be honest, I kind of was. _

"_Okay, _Loki_," I said with a sneer. "What do you want?" _

_I saw him narrow his eyes a bit in annoyance. Finally he said, "I want your alliance. I have heard that you are an enemy to the half bloods, and I plan to work with you to bring the half bloods and the avengers down."_

_I raised my eyebrows; letting that information sink in. he wanted me to work with him to bring down the Half Bloods and these…"avengers". At first I thought that it was the most silliest idea I had ever heard. Why would I work with this guy?_

_But then I thought it over and soon realized that I might need him to take down the Half Bloods, since it would be a lot easier with this guy were there to help me. I had to keep him talking to find out more information. _

"_Why do you want me?" _

"_Because you and I both want the same thing-revenge. For me, it is revenge toward the avengers for them putting me in that horrible jail and foiled my entire plan with the Tesseract."_

_I didn't bother asking him what the Tesseract was, so he continued._

"_And you, who don't want the Half Bloods being controlled by the Greek gods, and anyone who refuses, you kill." _

_I scrunched my eyebrows in confusion. What the hell? He knew a lot more about me than I was comfortable with._

_Loki noticed my confusion. A cruel smile crept up his face as he said, "Yes, I know everything about you and your little quest. Do not underestimate me. So I will ask you once again. Do you accept my offer?" _

_I had to think about it. I didn't want anyone with me, a threat towards my plans. He could ruin them all. I liked working alone, though I knew that it was not possible for me to beat all the Half Bloods on my own. I didn't have Kronos. We both did want the same thing. I wanted to defeat the half bloods and he wanted to defeat the avengers. Once we killed all the half bloods and avengers, I would stab him in the back (quite literally) and kill him so that I could live and be the winner. I wouldn't really work with him, I would just pretend to so that I could get the job done and kill the Half Bloods and then kill him in turn. _

_I made my decision._

_I turned to him and said, "I accept." _

_He smiled evilly as he said, "Good, very good."_

_Loki took a step backward then turned around, his cape flowing out from behind him. He walked back the way he came and slowly retreated into the shadows. _

_Creepy._

_I stared after him, wondering where he went. I had already said that I would join him. Now what?_

_My question was soon answered. _

_The darkness around me slowly crumbled. I t was as if everything fell apart. In fact, could actually see pieces of darkness fall apart in pieces, as weird as that sounds. The darkness was being replaced by a blinding white._

_I squinted my eyes, trying to avoid the blinding light. I sank to my knees as I could feel the light boring into my skull, until I finally couldn't take it anymore. _

_Then, all the white faded and was replaced by a suffocating black once more. _

…

My brain was foggy and clouded. I couldn't think properly as I lay wherever I was. I couldn't feel the sand underneath me anymore. In fact, I was laying on something relatively soft. It felt comforting-a nice change from the rough of the sand.

I didn't want t get up, or open my eyes for that matter, but I finally forced my eyes open a crack.

What met me was a complete and utter surprise.

I had to wait a few minutes for my eyes to adjust to the ssun, but once they did, I wasn't in the place I first slept in. in fact, this wasn't a dessert at all.

It was a friecken forest.

As I forced my eyes open fully, I noticed that I was surrounded by trees, bushes and other strange plants that I have never seen before. I was completely shocked. I had no idea how the hell I had gotten here.

The last thing I knew was that I had gone to sleep on the cold sandy ground surrounded by my supplies. And now I was in the middle of a friecken forest.

I slowly pushed myself up into a sitting position. I turned my head to look around at my surroundings. My mind was slowly getting clearer.

It was not long before I realized that I didn't have any of the stuff I had with me before, with me now. I didn't have my food, my water…or backbiter.

I looked around frantically for my sword, but I couldn't find it. My heart starting beating frantically as I became more and more anxious. I needed my sword. I wouldn't be able to do anything without it. I didn't have time to think about where I was. I had to find my sword, or I would be done for.

"Looking for this?" A voice asked from behind me. I whirled around, startled.

"What the hell?" I exclaimed.

Behind me I saw the Loki guy from my dream with a smug grin on his face. He was holding my sword, backbiter in his hand that wasn't holding his staff.

"How the hell did you get that?" I shouted angrily.

"Tsk-tsk-tsk, Luke do we really start a conversation like this?"

I walked over to him and quickly grabbed my sword back from him. He didn't try to stop me.

"Where the hell am I?"

"You, as you can see, are in a forest." He replied in his annoying British accent.

"Yeah, I realized that much," I muttered. "But how did I get here?"

"I teleported you here with my magic." He said that as if it was the most obvious thing in the world.

I let that slide and asked my next question.

"I though I was in a desert. How is there is a forest here?"

"Yes," he said exasperatedly, "But there is a forest in the outskirts of the desert. The only reason I found it, is because of my magic."

"Okay…," I said slowly. "But why? Why are we here?"

"The avengers and the half bloods are all eventually going to arrive here. They have had dreams telling them to come here. I will neither deny nor agree that I have sent those dreams." He paused and chuckled a bit. "But they will eventually get here, and fall into my trap. We will both get our revenge.

I thought about that for a minute. He was probably right. Everyone would get here eventually. I didn't think there was anywhere else to go. They would wander around the desert and eventually get here.

So I grunted and said, "Whatever you say, horny." I walked forward with backbiter in my hand. As I walked, I didn't here Loki behind me.

Instead, as I was walking, he materialized in front of me soundlessly. He grabbed a fistful of my shirt.

"Don't call me Horny!" He said with a snarl in his voice. He let go of me and backed down only a step. I didn't want to give him the satisfaction of knowing that he scared me.

"Okay, okay whatever you say." I said, cockily. I still had my plan to stab him in the back once my work was done and I killed the half bloods. I would never forget it. So for now, I let him lead the way into the thicket of the forest.

"Horny." I muttered under my breath as we walked.

My plan would be put into action in a while.

I was sure of it.

**Well, there you go. The luke chapter. **

**Ha ha! Here is where the fun starts. **

**Please read and review, you guys have been awesome!**

**-Detective DG**


	12. Chapter 12

**Hey guys! Whasssup?**

**The strangest thing happened the other day. We had a coyote warning in my school. I didn't even know we had such thing as a coyote warning. So apparently there was one wandering around outside. I guess we have things like that in Canada. **

**So I'm going to stop telling you about my fucked up life and get on with the story.**

**We las left off when Thalia and the gang have just set up camp and went to sleep. It is now morning. **

**Hope you like it!**

Thalia POV

A sliver of light met my eyes. It was blinding. I scrunched my eyes shut and slowly opened them again to get used to the blinding sun. it was morning now. Thankfully, I actually had a dreamless sleep for once, which was kind of surprising. Not that I was complaining though.

I slowly pushed myself off of the cold sand and out from underneath my blanket. I saw that Clarrise was awake and rummaging through her things, which were of course were really little.

Clarrise being up early wasn't the only strange thing though. I looked around and realized that I couldn't see Nico anywhere. At first I was a little worried about where he had gone, but I came to the conclusion that Nico could more than likely take care of himself if something happened to him.

As I was rustling around with my blanket, Clarrise had noticed that I woke.

"Morning." She said curtly. I nodded toward her and she then went back to whatever she was doing.

Grover and Rachel were both still asleep. Grover and Rachel were both still asleep. Grover seemed to be sleeping soundly under his blanket. Though, Rachel didn't seem to appear that way. When I turned to see how she was doing, I saw that she was tossing and turning, tangling the blankets all around her. I went over to her and tried to wake her up.

"Rachel. Hey Rachel." I tried to shake her gently, but it didn't seem like she wanted to wake up. It looked like she was having a nightmare.

I called Clarrise over to help me. She walked over and knelt down beside me.

"Rachel. Rachel!" She said as she roughly shook her shoulder.

She looked at me and shrugged when it didn't work.

"What's going on?" I heard someone say groggily behind me. It was Grover. It seemed that us trying to wake Rachel up had woken him.

I heard him shuffle around as he came out from under his blanket.

"Grover, get over here and help us wake up Rachel."  
"All right, all right. Just let me wake up…" Grover said, sounding a bit annoyed.

I turned back to Rachel and saw that she was thrashing around even more.

"N-no!" She muttered.

Just as Grover was about to join us, Rachel shot up from the ground.

"NO!" She shouted.

Grover, Clarrise and I backed up a few spaces to give her some space. She was breathing in shot gasps, as if breathing was a labour. We didn't say anything for a few minutes, waiting for her to calm down.

Once she did calm down, she looked up at us in surprise as if she had just realized that we were right in front of her.

"What happened?" I asked her.

"It was the oracle," She mumbled quietly.

"The oracle?" Grover asked, nervously.

I scrunched my eyebrows. "What prophecy did she spew this time?"

"There was no prophecy." Rachel looked up at us with an expression of bewilderment on her face.

"What?" Clarrsse asked in shock.

"In fact, she wasn't even there. I only heard her voice."

"What did she say?" I asked curtly

"Nothing except for one line: Go to the forest. There was no riddle or anything."

"Forest? I don't see how there can be a forest in the middle of a desert. That seems like enough of a riddle to me." Clarrise said, accusingly.

"No, I mean like prophecy type riddles." Rachel countered.

"That's true…" I said thoughtfully. "Maybe the Oracle is directing us to go to a forest here. Its not like we would've known that there was one here in the first place.

"Exactly." Rachel agreed.

"Okay…if you guys say so." Grover said hesitantly.

"But how do we get there?" I contemplated.

"I-I don't know. The Oracle didn't tell me anything else." Rachel replied.

Just as Rachel said that, out of the corner of my eye, I saw a dark shadow forming in the middle of the bright dessert. I knew what that meant. Nico.

Rachel, Grover and Clarrise noticed as well and we walked over to where the shadow was forming. Not soon after, the dark shadow materialized into Nico.

As Nico fully formed into a solid person, he almost collapsed from exhaustion, but I held him steady.

"Hey guys." He said tiredly.

"Where have you been?" I asked.

Nico ignored my question and instead said, "You're not going to believe this, but I found something, guys. Something big."

"What…?" Grover asked hesitantly.

"A forest."

"What?!" We all asked, very surprised.

"Yep, you heard me. A forest."

There was silence after that. We all couldn't believe it. Was this going to be the solution to our problems?  
Finally, Rachel broke the silence. "Well, that was a lot easier than I thought it would be."

"What was?" Nico asked, confused.

I stepped in. "Well, Rachel had a dream where the oracle told her to go to a forest. There was no prophecy or anything."

"That's strange…" Nico said thoughtfully. "It can't just be that simple. There has to be a catch somewhere. Why would the oracle just _tell _us to go somewhere?"

"I don't know, but I think we're going to have to leave that question for another time. For now we have to get to this forest. I'm running out of options here. It's either go to this forest or die of starvation and dehydration here. And I like the part where we don't die, better." I commanded.

"Yeah, well where is this forest of yours, Nico?" Clarisse demanded.

"It's actually not far from here. I did have to shadow travel a bit to find it, but it shouldn't be that far away." He paused. "Or maybe it is…"

"Well, can't you just shadow travel us there?" I asked.

"There are too many people. I would pass out from exhaustion."

"Okay, so we walk." Grover said.

"Yeah, let's get our stuff." Rachel said as she picked up the blanket she was under from the ground.

We then all scattered and grabbed all of our things from around our makeshift campsite. The little food and water we had left went in the little satchel that Rachel had gotten. We even managed to fit both of our blankets in there. After all, there wasn't much in there to begin with.

As soon as we got everything winded up, we fixed our campsite so that it looked like no one had ever been there. We had to be as careful as we could in this place. We didn't want to take any unwanted chances.

"Which was is the forest?" I asked Nico.

"Umm…I think it's that way." Nico pointed straight in front of him.

"You _think"_

"yep_." _

"Well that's reassuring." I muttered, but followed him nonetheless. After all, it wasn't like we had much of a choice

…

When Nico had said "close", I had thought that maybe we would have to walk an hour at the most to find the forest. But I guess Nico has a very different definition of "close", as we had ended up walking for a full four hours.

"Nico, I thought you said this thing was close!" I exclaimed.

"I did! I don't know why…" He trailed off.

At first, I didn't know why he had stopped talking, but then I realized that he was looking at something. In fact he was looking at a very big, very green forest. I stopped in my tracks, staring at the place in amazement. So Nico _was_ right. I only just realized that I hadn't really believed Nico when he first told us.

"See, I told you…" I heard Nico mutter.

"This is amazing!" I exclaimed.

It took us a few minutes to shake out of our amazement. But once we did, we started walking toward the forest as fast as we could.

In the back of my mind, I knew that this forest could be teeming with all kinds of monsters. Some could be even worse than the ones I had already fought. But then again, this could be the only place we could ever find water and food. If it were a choice between dying because of dehydration and dying from an epic battle with a monster, I would choose the monster. If I had to die, I would rather go down fighting.

So we walked on, toward the forest, toward finding Percy and Annabeth, or maybe toward our doom.

….

After another hour of trudging through the sand, we finally go to the edge of the forest. We looked for a clearing to go in thorugh.

Finally, we found one. The plants and bushes were parted to show a path through the forest. It almost seemed like someone had already gone into the forest this way. The rest of the group went in, parting the trees to make an even bigger path.

Rachel quietly went into the trees and finally it was me. I was the last person to go in.

I sighed. "Well, here goes…basically everything." I stepped in and was finally swallowed by the thick plants.

**Well there you go. **

**Everything got a little more exiting now, eh? Everyone is now in the forest. Here is the where the real fun starts. I know I've been saying that for a couple of chapters now, but this time it's for real.**

**Stay tuned for the next chapter which is Percy!  
Keep reading and reviewing guys! They're awesome!  
-Detective DG**


	13. Chapter 13

**OMG! You guys are AWESOME! I can't tell you how much I just love reading your reviews. They're amazing. **

**And guys! We survived the end of the world! If I ever get kids, I would make them watch the movie 2012 and say that I survived that. That would be so funny. **

**So anyways, we last left off when Percy and Annabeth were about to go into the forest. We some action here.**

**And without further ado, on with the storryyyyy!**

Percy's POV

Annabeth and I had been trekking tirelessly through the thick forest. I had uncapped my sword a long time ago to try and hack away at the trees and bush, but it didn't seem to be doing much. Annabeth had been helping me the entire time. She had her knife out and was slashing the bushes and trees to shreds, just so we could make a small trail.

There seemed to be no clearing in the forest at all. Every which way we went, there was forest, forest and more forest.

"How long do you think-unf-we have to-unf-do this?" Annabeth said between slashes.

I paused in my hacking. "I have no idea."

"Well that's enlightening." Annabeth huffed.

I ignored her and hacked at a poor tree particularly harshly.

"Do _you_ have any idea where we are?" I asked her. She didn't give an answer.

"I thought so."

We walked on through the trees in silence. It was actually kind of dark in the forest. Because of the thick canopy, the harsh sunlight couldn't get through, making the ground cool. It was a nice change from the harsh sun of the desert.

As I was just about to slash at another tree branch, Annabeth stopped me.

"Look over there."

She pointed at the trees to the left of me. Rays of sunshine were peeking through the bush. I swung my sword at the branches to reveal a medium sized clearing.

Annabeth slashed some more at the branches obscuring our view and we got our first full view of the clearing.

"Wow." I heard Annabeth whisper. I hummed in agreement.

In the middle of the clearing was a crystal clear blue lake. It was the cleanest lake I've ever seen in my entire life. I could see little fish splashing around in the lake. It was so beautiful, it was almost comical. I could practically hear the cheesy music in the background.

That's when I realized just how thirsty I really was. I walked over hungrily toward the lake. I put my head under the water, gulping it down like it was the end of the world. Once I had gotten my fill, I lifted my head from the water.

I saw that Annabeth had her hands cupped and was slowly bringing water to her mouth. I leaned back on my knees and looked up at the sky. There were still trees blocking out some of the sky, but I could still a part of the sky. It was a clear blue, the same colour as the water. This was the first time since I had arrived here that I was actually at peace. It reminded me of when annabeth and I were at the lake before the black hole took us and brought us here.

I closed my eyes to fully enjoy the moment. A few minutes later, I heard Annabeth's voice.

"We should fill up our water bottles."

I opened my eyes to look at her and saw that she had one of our empty water bottles in the lake, filling it up.

"Okay," I said as I picked up an empty water bottle beside me and willed the water from the lake to flow into the water bottle. It felt good to be able to use my powers and see water again after being stuck in the desert. I never did like deserts of course. What with being the son of the sea god and deserts not having any water at all. Also, I remembered what happened about three years ago to Bianca. I shuddered inwardly. I never try to think about that if I could help it. That made my hate toward the desert even stronger.

I recapped the water bottle that I was filling, tightly, so that no water would leak. Annabeth was doing the same.

As I was filling up my second water bottle, I noticed something strange about the surface of the lake. The surface, until now, had been unnaturally calm. Now though, rings of water were spreading out from the centre of the lake, to the edges.

I stood up and slowly backed away. Something was wrong. Annabeth noticed this and took her water bottle out of the lake slowly. She soon joined me.

The rings of water in the lake suddenly got bigger as small waves appeared on the surface of the water. I didn't even think it was possible for waves to appear on lake, but apparently it was. At least it was here.

We both slowly walked away from the lake, suddenly very suspicious of the seemingly harmless lake.

Just as we were about to gather our things and leave, not wanting to risk any chances, a huge sea serpent burst from the lake. Water sprayed everywhere as I got my first look at the serpent. It was positively huge and had scales covering its entire body. It had a strange frothy green colour. There were huge spines going up and down its back. Its face kind of looked like how a Chinese dragon would look, complete with the whiskers. Even bigger waves appeared on the lake as the huge dragon thrashed around in the water.

I had no idea how something its size could fit in that small of a lake. Agh, curse my ADHD mind. I had to focus on the problem at hand, not how a dragon could fit in a small lake.

The body of the serpent was still in the lake as it brought its head eye level to us. I was looking into one of its huge, yellow eyes.

I heard Annabeth draw in a sharp breath as the dragon snorted and hot air hit us. Had it ever heard of toothpaste? The smell was horrible.

"If we walk away slowly, it might not attack us." I whispered in Annabeth's ear. She nodded vaguely and we both started to back away ever so slowly.

My plan didn't work.

As we were backing away, I heard a _snap_ as I stepped on a twig. I cringed at the sound.

The serpent's head turned with lightning fast speed. I caught my breath and tried to stay as still as I could with a huge dragon breathing hot, smelly breath into my face.

Just as I thought that it wasn't about to do anything, the serpent let out an ear-shattering roar and lunged at me with its razor sharp teeth.

The dragon snapped at my side, but I rolled away in the nick of time and landed hard on the grass.

"Annabeth run!" I shouted as I uncapped riptide.

The serpent was now separating me from Annabeth. I couldn't see where she was, but I hoped that she had gotten away.

The dragon snapped at me again, and I quickly jumped to my right, dodging its sharp teeth. It snapped again in quick recession, but this time it found its mark.

"Aaah!" I screamed out as I clutched my left arm. I could see deep bite marks on my arm as it gushed blood.

"Percy!" I heard Annabeth shout my name. "Hey big and ugly! Over here!" She shouted right after that.

The huge dragon then turned on Annabeth.

"No!" I said through my teeth as I was clinging on to my left arm I had to get to the lake to get more power. The only problem was that the dragon currently inhabited the lake. That seemed like a pretty big problem at the moment. I had to get to the lake without the dragon noticing.

As I sneaked behind the serpent, I risked a quick glance at Annabeth and saw that she was expertly dodging all of its attacks.

"Yah!" She screamed as she stabbed her knife into the dragon's side when it snapped at her. Annabeth tugged at her knife, but it didn't seem to want to come out. The serpent hardly seemed to notice that there was a knife sticking out of its hide. It barely seemed to faze it.

"Annabeth, you need to distract it!" I shouted. "I need to get to the lake!"

I ran toward the lake, not waiting for an answer. Behind me, the dragon was snarling as it battled Annabeth. I looked behind me once again and saw that Annabeth was scrambling toward our backpack that was lying on the ground. I soon realized that she was trying to get the machine gun out of it.

I turned my attention back to the lake. I was now only a few feet away. Behind me, I heard gunshots mixed in with pained snarling from the serpent.

"Yes Annabeth!" I muttered.

When I finally got the lake I dived in, trying to avoid as much of the body as possible. I felt the water heal the bite on my left arm, slowly but surely. Soon enough, I couldn't feel much of it anymore and saw that it was just a thin, white line.

I swam deeper and deeper under the water, twirling as I formed a torpedo. I then swam like a bullet toward the surface and shot out of the water. I aimed toward the serpents head and hit its eye with a sharp jet of water. It roared in pain as it flailed around, its eye now bleeding a thick yellow liquid.

Meanwhile, I saw Annabeth still shooting her gun with rapid succession toward the dragon. She had gotten her knife back from the hide of the dragon as well.

I suspended myself near the serpents face on a plume of water. I slashed at it with my sword and the dragon drew back, snarling in agony.

I smirked at the dragon as I lowered myself into the lake once again. I willed myself to stand on the lake without going under. I had an idea about defeating the serpent, but it would sap a lot of my energy. So I naturally decided to go with it.

I concentrated on the water below me to turn slowly to ice. I had never tried this before so I didn't even know if it would work, but I tried anyways. My idea was to freeze this monster then smash it into a million pieces with Annabeth help.

I scrunched my eyes shut as I concentrated on turning the water to ice. I could hear crackling as tendrils of ice slowly spread throughout the entire lake.

A minute later, I opened my eyes to see that the entire lake was on ice. Now all I had to do was to extend the ice so that the dragon would become frozen as well. Piece of cake, I thought sarcastically.

I concentrated some more and another minute later, he ice was quickly spreading to the dragon.

It let out a loud screech as if it were surprised that it couldn't move anymore. It tried to thrash around, but I only made the ice thicker. Just as I had suspected, this was sapping a lot of my energy. I could see black spots in my vision now. I tried to shake my head clear. I couldn't afford to pass out now.

Just as I was about to engulf the serpent entirely with ice, it let out another defiant roar and shook free from the ice. I didn't know where it had found the energy to do that, but somehow it did. The head turned around and bared its razor sharp teeth at me as it snapped at my side.

"Aaah!" I screamed out. I lost all my concentration on keeping the water as ice and fell to my knees. Luckily I hadn't lost all the water that I had turned to ice. A small spot was still there underneath me. Though it wasn't enough to keep the dragon at bay.

"No…" I muttered as I tried to pull myself to my feet. I had turn this dragon to ice. My entire vision was filled with black spots. I could barely see, but I pushed myself.

I concentrated once more into making the water into ice. I used up what little energy I had left and somehow managed to turn the dragon to ice once again. This time I made sure that it was fully on ice and couldn't escape. Once I did that, I sank to my knees once again.

I heard Annabeth shooting at the serpent once again, trying to break the ice. It seemed that she had understood my plan. Though I knew that that wouldn't break the serpent on its own. I had to break it myself or it would never be dead.

I willed myself to get up once again. I used up all of my willpower and concentration to break the now frozen solid dragon. I heard a deafening crackling sound as the dragon broke up into a million pieces of ice. The ice rained down on me ad I swayed on my feet. I felt the lake turn back into water as the energy sapped out of me. I had just enough time to hear Annabeth yell out my name before black spots filled my vision and I sank into the water, knowing no more.

…..

White light flooded my vision. In the distance, I heard someone calling my name. It sounded strangely muffled, as if they were talking from behind a wall. My head felt like it was run over by a truck. My entire body was sore. I slowly shook my head to clear my vision, and I soon found the faint outline of Annabeth in front of me.

"Annabeth?" I croaked. My voice also felt sore-like I was talking through sand paper.

I tried to push myself up from my position on the floor, but Annabeth gently put a hand on my shoulder, pinning me down.

"Take it easy. You lost a lot of your energy doing that little trick of yours. That wound from the serpent didn't help."

I paused, letting that sink in.

"The dragon-"

"Is dead. You killed it. I fished you out of the lake." She replied.

I slowly allowed myself to relax into my position.

"We don't have any ambrosia, so it might take you a little longer to heal."

I silently agreed with her. Without ambrosia, it would be hard for us if we got any injuries.

Then I remembered that my healing would be faster if I could just get into the lake. It would fuel me with energy. I pushed myself up again despite Annabeth's protests.

"Help me to the lake." I told her.

She seemed to understand what I wanted to do then as she helped me get up. I swayed on my feet slightly, but she had me in a firm grip so I wouldn't fall. I leaned heavily on Annabeth. My side was still an open wound with blood gushing from it. I felt woozy and wobbly from what I had done.

It took us a while for us to get to the lake, but once I stepped in I felt immediate relief. I let the water course through my body, giving me power. I looked down at my side and saw that it was healing and the horrible wound was turning into a small scar. Annabeth watched from the edge of the lake.

After five minutes, I swan out of the lake, joining Annabeth. As I stepped out, I felt some of the power that I felt in the lake seep away.

"You good?" Annabeth asked.

"Yep."

There was a pause. The Annabeth said, "Never again."

"Definitely."

"We shouldn't trust anything that looks calm and beautiful unless we absolutely need to." Annabeth stated.

I nodded in agreement.

"Come on, we should keep moving." I said.

I went to pick up some of the things we left lying around the edge of the lake. Luckily our water bottles were not damaged from our fight with the serpent. I shoved most of our things into our backpack. Annabeth grabbed some of the other things that were lying around here and there.

Once we had done that, we started trekking back into the dreary forest.

…..

"We've been at this for hours and we haven't gotten anywhere!" Annabeth exclaimed.

I grunted as I felt a branch scratch my arm. "I know."

Annabeth and I were covered in nicks and scratches from the many trees, branches and bushes. We were both tires, but we hadn't stopped trekking since the serpent incident. We didn't want to risk it, but it seemed like we were going to have to stop anyways. It looked like it was going to get dark soon.

"Percy, you want to make it a day now?" Annabeth said with weariness in her voice.

I was actually glad she said it before I did. "Yeah" I said with a grim sigh. "But we're going to have to find another clearing."

"Yeah…that…" I heard Annabeth mutter.

…

It took us another twenty minutes to find a clearing big enough for the two of us. It was covered with trees on all sides, and this time there was no lake in the middle. It looked like a pretty secluded spot as well. The trees were really thick here, so I was pretty confident when I said that no one would be able to see us here.

Annabeth and I both drank from one of our water bottle. We still needed to find food-fruits or berries that grew on bushes or even a little harmless animal that was wandering around the woods. We had decided to look for those things the next day.

I took out our small blanket and pillow from the backpack I was carrying and I laid it on the ground. It was dark now. The thick tree canopy only made it darker, blocking out the moons light.

Annabeth and I were just about to settle down when we heard a loud cannon shot.

The sound ricochet in the trees, vibrating my bones. A bunch burds in the trees flew off, giving off loud screeches.

"What the hell was that?" Annabeth exclaimed as we both quicly got up.

"I don't know…" I said, confused. "You think someone found us?"

"I don't think so. Look." Annabeth pointed up at the part of the sky that we could actually see. In the sky was the figure of a person.

Nico to be exact.

"What the hell…?" I whispered. "Why is Nico's face in the sky?"

Annabeth relpied grimly, "I don't know, but I'm not sure I want to find out."

**Wow even this chapter is long. **

**Oooooh cliffy! What happened to Nico? You will find out in the chapter after the next one.**

**So as I promised, action! There will be a lot of action in the next chapter as well which is Bruce's.**

**Oh soo exiting! **

**And don't forget to review! Just like there wouldn't be any avengers without loki, there wouldn't be any story without reviews! **

**-detective DG**


	14. Chapter 14

**Hey guys once again.**

**Off from school at last. Though I'm having trouble finding out what's better-school or my house. My house is an absolute mad house. At times I actually like going to school rather that staying at home. And that is definitely saying something. **

**Well anyways, let's go on with the story. I think this is my longest chapter by far. **

**We last left off when the avenger's gang arrived at the forest. **

Bruce's POV  
"Oh my god." whispered someone from in the thicket of the forest. I anticipated the moment that I would see the inside of it.

I pushed through the thick trees and stepped into a different world entirely.

"Whoa…" I whispered as I looked around, taking in the beautiful scenery. All around us were tree, flowers and animals. Little insects that I have never seen before were flying around us.

I felt someone nudge my back and I quickly turned around to see Tony stepping through the trees in the little clearing we were standing in. I could actually see relief in his eyes when he looked around. I doubted anyone else noticed, after all, only I knew the full story of what happened to Tony in Afghanistan. Of course he wouldn't tell anyone else. In fact, the only reason I found out was because he had been severely drunk when the day he told me.

….

_It was a late night. Tony and I were working in the lab on another project-a better version of the shield helicarrier specifically for Avengers use. It had the same concept as the original. Big, enough space for briefings, and a lot of room. Though we were adding some, shall we say, upgrades to it._

_For example, we were adding rooms for all of the avengers tailored to their specific needs, a gym that took up most of the bottom floor, and many more labs than the helicarrier had. I personally thought it was a bit unnecessary, but of course, Tony had the complete opposite views. Everything for him was go big or go home. _

"_Hey Tony, you done with the blueprints?" I asked form one side of the lab._

"_Mmmm…almost." He replied. _

"_okay." _

_I was looking over some algorithms for the holographic shield that we were planning to add to the flying ship._

_Just as I was going over a second formula, I heard a click and then a hiss. That was the sound of the high tech door to the lab opening._

_I swivelled around on my chair to find Steve standing close to the door, looking a bit apprehensive. It looked like he really didn't want to be here. _

_Tony turned around a fraction of a second and then turned back to his work, not even acknowledging his presence._

"_Ahem." Steve cleared his throat to catch his attention. _

"_Hello Steve." I said politely. _

_He nodded at me and said, "Hello Dr. Banner." He paused after that, as if he were thinking his words through before saying them. Finally, he said, "The two of you have been in the lab for too long. I've been asked to bring you two up. Dinner's on the table." _

"_You can't tell us what to do." Tony's voice came from the depths of the lab. _

_I bit the inside of my mouth. I had a feeling that this was not going to turn out well. _

"_I think I'm talking for the entire team when I say that you've been down here for too long."_

"_Oh, and you're going to try and drag us out? Good luck with that."_

"_Look stark, I don't have a bone to pick with you, so why don't you just come with me?"_

"_Because you're not the boss of me."_

_Agh, this was not going to be let up lightly, was it? Tony or Steve both wouldn't give up in a situation like this. They had too much pride. This was about to get bad really quickly. _

_Steve turned to me. "Would you like to remove yourself from the situation, Dr. Banner?" _

_I scrunched my eyebrows. Frankly, I was a bit surprised when he said that. I wasn't that out of control. I was a bit annoyed at him as well. I could handle myself perfectly fine in situations like this. I wanted to say all of this, but I let it go and stayed quiet._

_Tony didn't though._

"_Hey! Bruce has more control than that. You should learn to trust him." _

"_I do! It just might not be good for him to be here at this time." _

_I really didn't want this to become about me. Did they really have to lash out at each other every time they talked? _

"_He's perfectly fine being here. Right Bruce?"_

"_I-I-"_

"_You know what? I am sick of you and your stupid comebacks! Why can't you just be normal like the rest of us, Howard!" _

_Then there was silence. That was the gunshot. The last straw. The salt to the open wound. Steve had called Tony Howard. I knew enough about Tony to know that he hated his father. Apparently his father never paid any attention to him. Steve calling him Howard must have really hurt. _

_I looked over at Tony and saw his face darken until it almost looked maniacal. It was actually scary. _

_He stood up from his chair so fast that it toppled behind him. Then he left, forcefully shoving Steve out of the way._

_I looked over at Steve and saw that he looked really guilty. He didn't say anything and just left the lab without a word. _

_I had to go talk to Tony. _

_If I knew Tony, he was probably raiding his bar, drinking yet again. That was Tony's solution when he was emotionally hurt. Drink until he couldn't drink anymore. _

_So that's where I decided to look._

_Half an hour later, when I was sure that Steve was long gone, I left the lab and went to the floor of the tower that held Tony's personal bar. _

_Sure enough, that was where I found him. He was sitting on a bar stool, cradling a glass of scotch, slumped over the counter. _

_I sighed and shook my head as I went to sit on a stool beside him. While I was at it, I went and poured myself a glass of beer. _

_Tony barely acknowledged my presence. He only slightly lifted his head and nodded once. We sat in silence for a few minutes. I only took a sip of my beer before pushing it away from me. _

_Finally, Tony looked up at me. "You know, my father never was a great person." His words were incredibly slurred. I noticed a bottle of scotch lying empty beside him. _

"_I remember when I was little; he used to hit me if I got in his way. I would try to show him something I made and he would just blow up on me. Everything I did was to make him proud. And it never worked."_

_What he said brought back my own memories. How my dad used to hit me if I so much as in front of him when he was in one of his rage episodes. How he used to hit my mother…I shuddered involuntarily. _

_Tony was quiet for a few minutes. When he spoke again, his words were only a bit less slurred. "Then, in Afghanistan, I almost died presenting one of my new weapons. I was still trying to make father proud. That was why I built that weapon. And I almost died because of that." Tony took another sip of his scotch. The ice clinked around in his glass. _

"_Then I was in that cave, with this in my chest," Tony tapped the arc reactor clumsily. It made a strange clinking sound, just like the ice in the glass. _

"_Yinsen made it to save my life. He saved my life and then he died. Just for me! 'Don't waste your life' he had said." Tony took a shuddering breath before he spoke again. "I managed to escape by making my first Iron Man suit. Then it broke and I was stuck in that horrible desert. It was hours before I was found. All to please my dead father!" _

_I looked at him with sorrowful eyes. I didn't even know that this had happened to him. Pepper had told me about Afghanistan, but even she didn't know the full story._

_I sighed once again. It seemed that I had been doing that a lot lately. "Look Tony, you didn't waste your life! You're here. You're a part of the avengers because you chose to be here. You chose to be iron man!" _

_He grunted. There was a glazed look in his eyes. I didn't know if he could understand me, but I spoke anyways. _

"_Me on the other hand, I didn't have a choice…Oh Tony, what do I do with you? You're so broken and you won't let any of us help."_

_When it was clear that Tony had drunk himself to oblivion, I tried to get him to move. I pulled him off the stool and let him lean on me as I led him to his room. _

"_But I'm not finished my drink!" He exclaimed._

"_Yes you are" I said firmly as we approached his room. I pulled him and set him down heavily on the soft bed. As soon as he was set on the bed, he passed out. I could see his chest rising and falling from his breathing. _

_I sighed and whispered to no one in particular, "Tony you don't know how lucky you are. At least you had a choice." _

_I walked to the door and before I left, I added as an after thought, "And a second chance."_

_I shut the door as quietly as I could and went back to the lab to try and escape from my own thoughts._

…_.._

"Everyone here?" Fury's voice snapped me out of my untimely flashback. Scattered agreements came from the group. I shook my head to bring myself back to the present. Tony gave me a confused look, but I ignored it.

A few moments later, Natasha spoke up, "We should try and find water."

Clint agreed. "Yeah."

Fury took out his knives and started slashing at the trees, attempting to make a path. In all honesty, it didn't do much.

"A little help here, stark?" Fury glared angrily at Tony.

"Huh? Oh yeah, of course I'll help you Fury!" Tony said in a mock sweet voice.

Tony placed his suitcase on the ground with a _clunk_.

"JARVIS, activate."

Two small fist sized holes appeared on the top of the suitcase. Tony formed his hands into fists and stuck them in the holes. The armour started to form around his arms and Tony brought his hands, along with the armour up to his chest. The chest plate slammed on and the rest of the suit followed. Once his body was encased in armour, he went over to Fury and started helping him break away the trees. The rest of us followed behind the two.

Tony started blasting the trees in our way with repulser blasts and they came down crashing. Fury helped by slashing at the smaller bushes and trees. Them working together formed a pretty wide path through the forest.

Our main goal was getting water. We had to hope that if we walked long enough, we would eventually find water or food before nightfall. But with our luck, I knew that at least one thing would go wrong in our today.

As we were walk, I noticed that I was really tired today. My eyes were drooping and it felt like I could barely keep them open. Last night, I had hardly slept. And when I did, I had these horrible nightmares from the days when I was on the run. I even think I had a dream that was actually the other guys dream. Everything was tinged in a green hue and I saw myself smashing Betty into the ground. That was when I woke up in the middle of the night. I had almost turned then. I hadn't slept for a while after that. I only stayed, curled up into a tiny ball, waiting for morning. When I had finally slept again, I got another horrible nightmare and that was when I woke up only to punch Tony in the face.

…I missed Betty. A lot. Her smile, oh, her beautiful smile. And her sweet smelling hair…

I got lost in my thoughts about her as we walked on. I remembered the days before the accident and how great they were. Not having to worry about crazed military men after me. Spending every day at the lab with Betty. Oh that was bliss.

My thoughts were violently interrupted as I bumped into someone and banged my head with theirs.

"Ow." I muttered as I noticed it was Steve who I bumped into.

He turned around to look and me. "Sorry." Said the ever polite soldier with a small, slightly apprehensive smile.

"Why are we stopping?" I asked.

"I found somewhere to get water." Fury stated.

He walked on and we followed, soon coming to a halt at a farily small, partially empty clearing. It was filled with squishy looking green grass.

"There's no lake here." Tony said, stating the obvious.

"No, but there is moss." Fury said.

Clint gasped and said, "Yeah! We could squeeze the moss to get some water out of it."

"Here, let me do it," Natasha walked to the front of the group and knelt down on a spot in the small clearing where there seemed to be a lot of moss.

"Hand me a bottle."

I slung off the backpack I had been carrying and rummaged around for an empty water bottle. I found one and handed it over to Natasha.

She took the water bottle in one hand, unscrewed the cap, and then picked up a handful of moss and squeezed until water came out of it. Surprisingly, the water looked pretty clean for moss water. Of course, I had done this before on my days when I was on the run, and found that moss water was actually substantially cleaner than any lake or river water.

Once Natasha had filled the water bottle with enough water so that it was actually full, she handed it back to me. I handed her another empty bottle and she filled it with more moss water. I placed both bottle back in the backpack.

"I think that's all I can do for now. We need to find a real source of water." said Natasha.

Tony and fury took their places back at the front of the group and continued to make a path through the woods.

As Tony and Fury continued hacking, I was lost once again in my thoughts, wishing that I could undue my entire life and start again. Though I knew that was impossible.

I had to bring myself back to reality.

….

It had been so long. At least four hours since we stopped to collect the water from the moss and we haven't found a single descent clearing. It was going to be dark soon. We would have to find somewhere to sleep in this forest and if we didn't find a clearing, then we would be screwed.

Tony was still in his suit and was fighting the trees that were in the way. Natasha was helping him now, having borrowed Fury's knives for the moment.

It had slowly grown eerily quiet with the only sounds being Tony's repulser blasts and the slashes of Natasha's knife. No one from our team spoke and there weren't any sounds of animals scurrying around or birds chirping. It was quiet. Too quiet. I decided that I didn't like it.

We kept trudging on though. It was not until an hour later that we found something. Thankfully, we had found a small clearing. I could literally feel the other's relief as we came across the clearing. Natasha gave Fury back his knives while Tony deactivated his suit.

The others just placed their weapons on the ground and settled down on the grass. The forest wasn't cold so we didn't need the blankets that were in the backpack I was carrying.

Just as I was about to sit down on the grass, an ear shattering boom resonated through the forest. I jumped violently at the sound while the others had just flinched.

As I took deep breaths trying to calm down, I said, "What the hell was that?"

No one answered. Instead, Thor pointed up at the sky and said, "Look at the sky comrades."

We all looked up in one fluid motion at the sky and saw someone's face projected into the stars. He had dark black hair and olive skin. His eyes were a deep hazel.

"Who the hell is that?" Clint asked bluntly.

"I don't know…" Steve muttered.

A few minutes later, the face faded into the black night sky as if it were never there. That must've been some type of very advanced technology, to project someone's face into the sky at that magnitude, I thought to myself. I wonder how they did it…

My train of thought was once again interrupted by none other than Tony Stark saying, "Who cares? It's not like its one of us."

Steve looked at Tony with disgust written all over his face.

"Who cares? What do you mean who cares? What if it was one of our faces up there?"

"Well that would be a totally different situation, now wouldn't it?" Tony bluntly replied.

"You don't care about any of this at all, do you?"

Tony's face contorted in anger. "Don't care about this? Do you know that guy?" Tony pointed up to the sky. "Do you even know if he's the enemy or not?"

"No of course not, but at least I have some care for a living breathing human being." Steve was literally in Tony's face by now.

This was really not the time for another one of their signature arguments. I've had enough of these to last a lifetime. The other guy was getting agitated as well and that was never a good thing.

I looked over at Tony's face and saw anger etched across his face. He really was furious at Steve. I looked over at the rest of the team standing around them hesitantly, thinking about if they should intervene or not.

"You know what? You are the single, most stupid person I have ever met! Of you care so much, why don't you go find him and help him out? Leave us why don't you! It'll be better for the rest of us as well!" Tony had finally exploded. I saw hurt flash across Steve's face, but it was quickly replaced by a mask of defiance. I had to stop this somehow since it seemed that the rest of the team didn't want to do anything. This had gone too far.

It looked like both men would start throwing punches if no one stopped them soon.

I walked up to both of them and before either of them could say anything, I grabbed each man's shoulders and pulled them apart from each other violently. The looked at me in astonishment, forgetting all about their little spat that they just had. In the background, I hear my watch beeping a bit faster.

"Think before you speak to each other like that. I don't think any of you want to die here, and if you keep that up, I can assure you that that will be our fate." I snarled at them before turning around and sitting down on the grass, facing away from the others.

I placed my head in my hands and tried to tell the other guy to back off. He didn't like it when the team argued, and neither did I. The beeping of my watch slows down to the constant beep that had been going on for the entire journey here. I was getting used to the beeping and hardly noticed it anymore.

No one said a word as they settled down on the ground.

I didn't turn around to face the others until I was sure they had all gone to sleep. I looked around at the others and noticed how calm they looked when they slept. They didn't have the worry on their face that they did when they were awake.

I sighed and lay down on the ground, looking up at the sky through a patch in the trees. There were only a few stars in the sky, if any at all. Mostly, the sky just looked like a sea of black.

It kind of reminded me of how my life felt-a sea of black nothingness.

It took about two hours for me to fall asleep, and once I did, I had another nightmare about my days on the run. I woke up in a cold sweat after I saw mysel-_the other guy_ killing Betty yet again. Her body was mangled and bloody, lying right in front of me.

I took deep breaths, trying to get a hold of myself. It was still the middle of the night and the rest of the team were still sleeping.

I lay back down, trying to relax myself.

I don't know how much time had passed before I finally sunk into another fitful sleep, but the next thing I know, someone is shaking my arm.

"…uce. Bruce, Bruce wake up."

I groggily open my eyes and come face to face with Natasha who is shaking me on the shoulder. I put a hand in front of my eyes in an attempt to block the blinding sun. I slowly sat up to find that the rest of the team already has all their things gathered.

"Wha-what? How long did I sleep for?" I ask.

"Long enough pal. Come on." I hear Tony say.

I got up from the ground and picked up the backpack beside me. I rubbed my eyes as I followed the rest of the group back into the forest. I had no idea what time of day it was and honestly, I couldn't care less. All I knew was that if I didn't get any _real_ water or food soon, I would lose it.

Fury and Tony led the way once again, doing what they were doing yesterday. The rest of us followed behind them.

The forest wasn't as quiet as it was yesterday. Today I could hear the scuttling of animals and birds chirping from the trees.

It wasn't long into the day, before we saw a harmless little animal stumble into our path.

"I think we found our food." I had heard Clint say.

Clint began waving his arm in the air, telling us to be quiet. In the distance, I saw a small horse sized creature. It didn't exactly look like a horse. It looked strange, like a deer's body with the huge ears of an elephant. It was the most bizarre creature I had ever seen. It wasn't even a normal colour. It was a light green-blue colour.

Clint quietly drew his bow and arrow, leaning low to make his mark. The strange dear-elephant didn't seem to notice us there. It just grazed in the forest, nibbling at the grass on the ground.

Clint pulled his arm back, ready to take the shot. I saw him letting out a small breath of air before letting the arrow fly. The arrow zoomed through the air, and it seemed to narrowly miss all the trees in the way. And of course, since Clint never misses, the arrow found its mark and was embedded in the creature before it even noticed we were there.

There was a dull _thunk _as the arrow sunk itself into the dear-elephant. Clint had a smug look on his face, waiting for the animal to fall.

The smile slowly fell off his face as the creature slowly turned to face us. There was something strange about the way it looked at us. Its eyes were a horribly familiar green colour, and its face morphed into one of anger. My eyes widened in shock as I realized why, though it was already too late.

The animals muscles ripped and tore as it slowly tripled in size right in front of us. We all watched on in shock as its skin colour changed from that green-blue colour to a deep forest green. Froth dripped from its huge maw right. The animal was easily as tall as the tallest trees. The trees beside it toppled from the shear size of the creature which I could easily identify now as a hulk creature.

"Oh my god…" I whispered.

Tony, Clint and Thor sprung into action, being that they were at the front of the group. Tony's repulser blasts seemed to have no effect at all on the tough hide of the creature, as well as Clint's explosive arrows. Thor kept hitting it with strong blasts of lightning, but even that didn't seem to be doing anything.

I slowly recovered my initial shock from seeing this hulk creature and yelled, "We have to go! NOW!" The rest turned to look at me, and were just about to take my advice, when I noticed that the hulk creature had other plans.

At the sound of my voice, the creature turned to me, green eyes boring into my skull. It sniffed the air as if it sensed my presence and it bared its teeth into a gruesome smile.

"Bruce, get away!" someone yelled. I had just enough time to drop and roll to the side before the creature lunged at me. I steadied my breathing as I got up from the ground. The creature seemed to be recovering from banging into a nearby tree head first.

The hulk animal turned around, looking at me once again as it let out an animalistic roar. It shook my very bone as I covered my ears to stop myself from becoming deaf. I backed up against a tree and soon realized that I was trapped. The creature seemed to only go for me and not the others, I observed. At least the others are safe, I thought.

As the creature stalked up to me slowly, Tony was blasting it from above while Clint and Natasha were shooting guns and arrows at it from below. It really didn't seem to be doing much.

"Bruce, it can smell you! You have to turn into the Hulk!" I heard Tony's voice say.

If I turned into the other guy, the team would have two hulks to deal with. I couldn't do that to them. And I doubted the other guy would like the presence of another hulk around him. The others would just end up as collateral damage. I had to lead the creature away from the others.

The hulk snapped at me again. I dove to the side in the last second and landed on a broken tree branch, hard on my back. I groaned in pain as I scrambled up, my breathing laboured and my heartbeat speeding dangerously. I could feel the beginning of a transformation coming on. I had to get away.

Just as I could see the animal rearing back for another snap at me, I turned and ran from the team into the thick forest. I could hear screams of protests coming from the team, but I ignored them. If it meant leading the creature away from them, I would split up from the rest of the team to do it.

As I ran, I could hear the hulk animal tearing up the trees behind me. Trees came crashing down around me as it scrambled after me. I ran as fast as I could away from the team and into the forest. I didn't risk looking back for the fear of slowing down. I could feel the hulk banging around in my head, just begging to be let out.

The creature snarled and roared as it chased me deeper into the forest. Once I finally thought it was safe enough and I was far enough away from the team, I relaxed and let out all of my anger, fear and frustration out. It flowed over me in waves as I unleashed the full fury of the hulk. I heard myself let out a loud roar and it was like I was listening to myself from somewhere really far away. I took refuge in a small corner of the hulk's mind as the hulk took over and I sank into a calming black.

….,…

The hulk was angry.

He didn't like the creature in front of it, trying to hurt his friends-the avengers.

The hulk roared in the strange creature's face and it backed down. The hulk was easily bigger than it. He placed a well aimed punch to its face and it flew back, crashing into the trees.

Hulk sneered at it, egging for it to come forward. It slowly got up and before the hulk could react, the thing punched the hulk in the face, and he fell into a tree. The tree toppled behind him.

Hulk backed away, trying to lead it farther into the forest. He knew that the tin man and the others would try and follow him, and the hulk didn't like to be followed.

The hulk and the creature started to throw punch after punch at each other. Soon, hulk got tired of the creature.

"Hulk smash!" He shouted as he picked up the creature and threw into the ground.

Hulk was proud of his work until it started to get up once again. He let out an earth-shattering roar and started to punch its face into the ground violently.

Once the hulk was satisfied enough to know that it wasn't going to get up again, he turned around and was starting to walk away when he was met with the strangest sight. Two puny humans, a guy and a girl, were staring up at him. The boy was holding a pointy stick that the hulk soon realized was glowing. The girl was also holding one of those sticks, but hers was much smaller.

The hulk grumbled under his breath as he saw the puny boy lunging for his foot. The stick sunk into the hulk's foot and he roared. It didn't hurt, it was just that he had bad experience with puny human's and there big or small sticks.

Hulk took a step back. He didn't try to hurt these humans. A voice in his head was telling him not to.

"Stop. Stop. Don't smash. Stop."

It was constant and he couldn't make it shut up. He clawed at his head and roared into the sky to try and make it shut up. It didn't work.

So the hulk had no choice but to listen to the annoying puny voice that belonged to none other than puny Banner in his head.

He looked down at the humans. The girl seemed to put her hand out in front of the boy. It seemed to stop him from sticking his glowing stick into Hulk again.

The Hulk was confused. He would've thought that they would be attacking him by now just like every other human had when they saw him, but they weren't.

He knew they were scared though. He could smell their fear-it was coming out of their bodies.

"Let me out." Hulk heard Banner's voice in his head again. He looked down at the puny humans once again and found that they didn't look like a threat towards him. They didn't have their pointy sticks in their hands anymore.

So the hulk gave into Banner's voice reluctantly and let him out yet again. He slipped into a dark corner of Banner's mind as he though no more, but saw everything.

….

Thank god the other guy let me out, Bruce thought as the transformation completed. He staggered forward, realizing two things. One was that he still had clothes on. Two, was that he was in front of two very random looking teenagers who had more than likely seen his monster.

Bruce had just enough time to think, 'Oh damn, this might not go so well' before he fell forward and sank into darkness once again.

**Koodos to all of you who already know who the two teenagers are! **

**Well I think its pretty obvious…right?!**

**Anyways, next chapter will be Nico. Y'all will get to find how he died! Or did he really die…? Who knows? Well, actually I do but still…**

**-Detective DG**

**PS: Don't forget to review guys! I really appreciate them!**


	15. Chapter 15

**Hello again wonderfull world of fanfiction.**

**So I was listening to some Skrillex on youtube the other day and I heard this one song with the line "You Blocked me on Facebook, and now you are going to die" going over and over again in a British accent throughout the entire song. **

**It was the funniest thing I have ever heard.**

**Seriously though, I LOVE skrillex. You guys should listen to it, it's amazing. And electronic. I have a feeling Iron Man would love those types of songs. **

**At least, I think.**

**Anyways enough with my rambling, lets get on with the story. **

**Oh and I love your reviews!**

**We last left off with Thalia and the gang getting into the forest and then Nico dying! Dun, dun, dun….**

Nico POV

I let the darkness swallow me. It was comforting, almost like a blanket of black.

Technically though, the darkness would be swallowing us all. Us half bloods were trekking though the now dark forest. The sun had set maybe an hour ago now. We had been the entire day, searching for food or water. We did find some water from small ponds and puddles, but we didn't find much food. We did find berries and stuff, but we though better then to trust them. They could've been poisonous and we didn't want to risk anyone dying or getting sick from something as small as berries. We would need all the strength we can get.

I was using my stygian iron sword to slash at the trees. We had been taking intervals so that we could take breaks when we got tired of slashing. Now it was my turn to make a path.

Clarisse was beside me helping me as well.

My sword felt cold in my fingers. Of course, it has always been cold, so it wasn't much of a surprise, but this time it was pulling me back to reality.

Somehow, the sword was pulling me into the present. Ever since I had gotten here, it felt like I was in a stupor-like it wasn't me who was doing all of this, but someone else.

It brought me to the fact that I really didn't want to be here.

I didn't know how the hell I had gotten here anyways. I was just getting into a lead on how I could see my mom, and I was pulled here randomly. I had been within hands reach of the answer, and it was ripped from my fingers. I had been _so close_ and now I was here.

I slashed angrily at a poor tree.

We were sent here to die. I was sure of it. I knew from the minute we got here. Only one person is meant to survive here. I could feel it. And I knew with my luck that I would probably not be that person.

I let all my anger and frustration out and cut the next thick tree brach cleanly in half.

I heard someone walk up behind me and realized that it was Thalia.

"Hey, you all right?" she asked, concerned.

I sighed and said, "Yeah, I'm good."

She nodded and didn't say anything gas I continued to slash away. I think she realized that I really didn't want to talk right now. She fell in step behind me once again with Grover and Rachel.

No one talked at all as we were venturing through the forest. And to say the truth, we hadn't gotten anywhere. We hadn't found a clearing to stop and rest in or even find food.

I had all about lost all of my hope.

Though, travelling with Thalia and the others had given me a sliver of hope. That _maybe_ we could find food and _maybe_ the other half bloods and I would all survive this horrible turn of event, but there were way too many maybes for my comfort.

I had tried to explain this to Thalia once. I had tried to tell her that I could sense that this all wouldn't end well, but it didn't work. She had lashed out at me, saying that I was stupid for thinking that way and that I was being selfish thinking that we wouldn't survive.

It had gone quiet after that.

After that outburst, none of us said another word, thinking about what our fate would be in this place.

Thalia did come up to me half an hour later and apologized. I accepted her apology, but I was still a little mad at her for lashing out at me like that. Though, I knew I couldn't blame her for getting mad. This place was making us all on the edge of our emotions, and hope was all we had.

A little while later, my grudge against her was gone and I turned less cold toward her ad we were once again on talking terms. I think the rest had noticed my grudge because after I started talking to Thalia again, they all visible relaxed as if a weight had been lifted off the air. We had talked a bit more after that, but we all didn't really feel in the mood to talk.

So naturally, Clarisse and I were slashing away while the others walked behind us, not uttering a word.

About a half hour later, I felt sweat dripping from my forehead. It was as hot in the desert was in the forest, except that it was humid here as well. That made it all the worst. I let out quiet grunts as I swung my arms trying to clear the path. I heard Clarisse doing the same. It was almost time for us to switch roles with Thalia and Rachel. Rachel would be using one of her knives. She did have a little experience with them, because after all, you could never live in Camp Half Blood and not have experience with any sort of weapon.

A few minutes later, Clarisse and I switched with Thalia and Rachel. We fell to the back of the group with Grover. I went to the very back, not really wanting to walk with anyone.

I swung my sword at some trees behind me just for the sake of it. I hated feeling helpless-like I could do nothing to help the rest get out of here. I've never felt helpless like this, not even when Bianca died. At least I could do something then.

It was a strange feeling and I decided that I hated it.

As I was walking, I passed some strange looking vegetation. I saw this one tree that looked like a bumblebee crapped on it. It had black and yellow stripes going up and down the trunk. They were subtle, but you could still notice the stripes. I knew better than to touch it of course, so I just walked past.

A few minutes later, I approached a tree different from the rest. It was radiating something-like a rainbow glow of some sort while the trunk was brown and the leaves were green. It was oddly beautiful. No one else seemed to notice the glow of the tree.

I walked toward it slowly, almost like I was in a trance or something. I couldn't stop myself. It was like I was watching myself go up to this tree from afar-like it wasn't me. I was detached from my body.

I saw myself reach out my arm and touch the tree bark. The others didn't notice what I was doing yet.

I tried to stop myself from touching the bark, but I couldn't. I knew it could be poisonous, but I couldn't do anything. I knew this could only end badly, but I couldn't stop it.

I tried to pull my hand away, but all I did was hesitate a fraction before I touched it. I felt something like lightning course through my body. My hair stood on end as was fried from the inside out. White hot pain flowed throughout my entire body. My hands and legs went numb and I couldn't feel anything anymore. I felt myself sink to the ground and crack my head on the floor of the forest.

The last thing I heard before I sunk into oblivion was someone calling out my name and a deafening shot through the air that almost sounded like a cannon.

Then I sunk into the sweet darkness.

…..

_The first thing I noticed as I woke up (or at least I thought I woke up, it felt like I had just closed my eyes for a second) were the noises and the smells. _

_Around me, I heard the strange clatter of bones which I've heard too much before. It was a strange click click, like the chatter of a skeleton or a ghost in the fields of asphodel. _

_The next thing I noticed was the smell. It smelt like the dead. Of course, I could smell dead almost every day since people died almost every second, but this was different. _

_There was so much dead._

_It was almost overwhelming. It was all around me. Engulfing me, surrounding me. In fact, if I didn't know any better, I would've thought that I was dead as well, but of course I couldn't be. I had to be with the other half bloods in the forest. _

_Finally, I opened my eyes. _

_I did _not_ like what I saw. _

_I was in a line with a bunch of other people. A bunch of _dead_ people._

_To be utterly specific, I was in the underworld waiting to be judged. _

_I knew where I was, the moment I opened my eyes. I had been here too much to forget how it looked. But I'd always come here on will. I'm pretty sure I wouldn't come here in the middle of a crisis situation with the hunger games or some next shit. _

_I looked down at myself and found something I really wished wasn't true. My hands looked like they were see-through. I could see right through them and saw the floor beneath. My eyes widened in shock. I have seen a lot of people who looked like this. They were all dead. _

_Could I be dead?_

_I couldn't be dead! I was with the Half Bloods just minutes ago! I was sure of it. _

_The fragments slowly came back to me. I had touched that strange looking tree and now I was here. Was I dead because I had touched a tree? _

_Wow, what a stupid way to die. I always thought I would go down fighting with my friends. Not by touching a goddamn tree. _

_I knew it was a bad idea from the start. I knew touching the tree would never bring me any good, but I had no choice. But still…how could I be dead. I felt alive…I felt conscious. I tried talking to the dead guy behind me and found out that I could still form words. I wasn't talking in the clatter of the dead people. _

_Maybe that was an advantage that came with being the son of Hades. _

_The line moved forward ever so slowly. I took another step forward and waited once again in the line of death. I tried to step out of line, but something was preventing me from doing so. It was like I was faced with an imaginary barrier._

_I had to find a way to get out of here. _

_What about the other half bloods? I needed to help them win!_

_I had to get out of here somehow. _

_I was thinking of just booking it and running, but where would I go? Its not like I could escape the underworld._

_I had no where to go and I was trapped. _

_For now, I had no choice but to wait in the death line and hope that something would happen soon. The line shuffled along slowly and I was dying (quite literally) on the inside. I hated not being able to do anything. _

_I took another step forward in the line. It had been at least another ten minutes and I could faintly see Cerberus in the distance, guarding the gates. I had seen him many times before, but always when I was alive. Never when I was actually dead. I still couldn't believe it. _

_Suddenly, in the distance I heard the flapping of wings. I could recognize that sound anywhere. It was a fury. I had seen them enough to know that whenever they appeared, it was never for something good. _

_I waited in anticipation, hoping that they wouldn't land near me, but of course with my luck, I was wrong. I saw it flapping its wings to come in for a landing and it came to a stop right next to me. _

_It was a hideous thing, with its wings all skeletal and its strange body all rotten. I had never gotten used to the fury's appearance before, and I knew I never would. _

"_Nico, son of Hades, come with me," She said in a raspy voice. _

_She waited. At first I didn't know what to do, but then I realized that she wanted me to follow her. I stepped out of the dead line tentatively and found that I wasn't stopped by that invisible barrier anymore. _

_As soon as I stepped away from the dead, they started to clatter and clack as they noticed that I could escape. They all started to try and push out of the line, but they couldn't. The barrier was still stopping them. It slowly got louder until all I could here was the clatter of dead speech._

_To silence them, the fury screeched into the air of the underworld. It was animalistic and raspy, but it worked. The dead silenced and stopped trying to escape. They stood back in their lines as if nothing had happened. _

_I looked back at the fury, waiting for her to do something. When I turned my attention back to the dead and I suddenly felt something sharp on my back. The fury had grabbed me with her sharp talons. She beat her wings and started to fly away with me dangling from her claws. _

"_Whoa, whoa. Hey!" I exclaimed in surprise as she lifted me up into the air. _

"_Where are we going?!" I shouted at her as we flew away. She didn't answer me. _

_We kept flying through the air, my "invisible" hair flowing in the wind. A couple minutes later, I realized where we were going. In the distance, I saw Hades's grand palace standing like a castle overlooking its kingdom. It was such a contrast between the flat of the underworld. _

_The fury carried me to the doors of the palace and set me down, none to gently at the entrance. _

_As I got up from the floor of the cold ground, I looked behind me and noticed that the fury was long gone. _

"_ok…" I muttered. _

_I walked up to the huge doors and stared at them for a few second. I then sighed and said, "Well, here goes nothing." _

_I pushed open the doors with the palm of my hand and they budged ever so slowly with an ominous creaking sound. The doors opened to reveal a huge throne room. In the throne room was a single chair turned around to face a hearth. I cautiously approached the chair, not really liking where this was going. I knew Hades was sitting on it of course._

"_Hello Nico," said Hades in an equally ominous, dark voice. _

"_Um…hello?" _

"_Come here," he said as he turned around in his chair. He was in human form, thankfully. _

_As he turned around, I saw his face for the first time. It looked gaunt, as if he had a thousand burdens on his shoulders. I knew something was wrong. His shoulders were slumped and his eyes didn't have the dark, evil fire shining in them that they usually had. Now they were more like black voids. _

_I walked over slowly to him and once I was ten feet away, I stopped. I didn't bow either. _

"_What happened?" I asked curtly._

_I saw a very small flicker of hurt flash briefly though his eyes, but it was quickly replaced with the black nothingness once again. _

"_You're dead," he said, a bit surprised, more like a statement rather than a question. I felt like I had just been punched in the stomach. _

"_Yeah." I said, as curtly as possible. I was determined to stay as cold and calculating as I could. _

"_How are you here?" he asked, actually having the decency to look confused. _

"_I died." I said in the most sarcastic tone I could muster up._

"_You're supposed to be in the hunger games!" he roared, actually showing some emotion for once. _

_I paused, about to retort when I realized something. _

_He knew about the hunger games. _

_How did he know? The gods surely couldn't know about it, could they? Oh, who was I kidding? Of course they knew. They probably don't care and think that we can win it without any help at all from them. _

"_Yeah and I died." I finally replied._

_Hades sighed deeply. He probably found out by now that I wouldn't let up with the attitude._

"_Are the gods even trying to help?" I exclaimed._

"_Yes we are. We're trying to find out where you are. And we still cant intervene with a half blood's quest."_

"_Quest?! What quest?! Does this look like a quest to you?" I shouted._

_I saw a dark flame flicker in Hades eyes, but it was quickly extinguished once more. _

"_It is not a quest." Hades agreed, shifting slightly in his chair. "You were pulled into it forcefully."_

"_No shot…" I muttered. "And what about Luke? How did he escape the underworld?" _

_Hades eyes grew darker that they ever were before._

"_That I do not know. It is a magic older than us gods." He paused. "Or a technology far more advanced then we could ever believe. I do not know." _

_Hades grew quiet for a while. I didn't say anything either._

_Finally, Hades said, "We do no know how this happened. We did not know that the future has the power to do this, but now we know that even the future of our own world could be our enemy." He paused, as if he was thinking over what he was going to say next._

"_Not only one person has to win." _

_I frowned up at him, half with anger and half with confusion. That was impossible. Someone had to win. They couldn't have more than one winner. _

"_How?" I asked. "The point of the game is to kill everyone until there is only one person standing."_

"_There is a way." Hades repeated. "You just have to find it." _

"_Well that's a lot of help." I said, being very snarky. _

_Hades gave me a dark dangerous look and I figured that it was best if I didn't say anything else. _

_Hades sighed. "I will cast you back to the world of living. But you have to promise me one thing. The only way to escape is by allying with the avengers. If you do not, there will be no chance at all."_

_I stared at Hades strangely. The avengers? The half bloods and I had enough to worry about without the avengers getting in our way. We didn't even know who the hell these people were and what they could do. What if they turned on us if we did join them? And where are we supposed to meet them anyways?_

"_Just promise me this one thing, Nico" For the first time since I arrived here, he called me by my first name. I looked up and saw something different in those dark eyes of his. I couldn't put my finger on it, but it was different. I softened a little bit and though about what he was talking about._

_It did make sense. If we joined the avengers, we would have power in numbers. And all of half bloods together could kick their ass any day for sure. So I said, "Okay."_

_I heard Hades sigh in relief, but that was all. No show of emotion farther than that. I looked for a sign of reassurance in his face, but found none. Who was I kidding? Hades never showed softness. Not even to his own son apparently. _

"_I will send you back now." Hades said as he turned his throne chair around to face the fire in the hearth once more. _

_A few second after he said that, I felt something like the sucking of air pulling at my body. I was being harshly pulled away from the throne room. I tried to fight it, but I couldn't. I finally gave in to the winds._

_The last thing I heard Hades say was, "Goodbye Nico." _

_He sounded melancholy, as if her were never going to see me again. I didn't have time to think about it before I was sucked into the strong winds. The next thing I knew was a deep, dark black, just Hades' eyes. _

…_.._

I opened my eyes.

Someone was shaking me harshly. Who was it?

My eyes opened sluggishly, like they were glued together. Once they did open, I saw the silhouette of four people surrounding me.

I realized that I was on the soft ground of the forest. How did I get here? That's when I slowly remembered what happened.

The three silhouettes slowly came into focus and I saw Rachel, Thalia and, Grover and Clarisse. Thalia had been shaking my shoulder the entire time.

"I'm up, I'm up…" I mumble in a stupor. Thalia stops shaking me.

I push myself up with my hands into a sitting position but as soon as I did, I started feeling woozy. I saw black spots swim into my vision.

"Hey, take it easy." I heard Thalia say as she held my shoulders with her hands.

I groaned. "What happened?"

"Well, you touched a tree and you fell." Rachel said, quite bluntly.

"And then there was this weird cannon sound." Clarisse stepped in.

"Yeah, I heard that…" I mumbled.

"And then, your face appeared in the sky," said Grover finally.

Thalia sighed. "You weren't breathing. You were dead." She looks me in the eye and I see a glimmer of hurt and concern, but it quickly disappears.

My eyes darken. "I know." The others look at me strangely. Finally, Rachel says, "What happened?"

"I was in the underworld." I reply. "I was dead and was waiting to be judged. Then one of the furies took me to see Hades."

"Wait so you _were_ dead?" Thalia asked, looking a bit shocked.

"Yeah."

"And you saw your dad." Grover says, more like a statement than a question.

I frowned when he said "dad". He wasn't my dad. He would never be my dad.

"Yeah."

"What did he tell you?" asked Clarisse.

"He told me to promise that we would join the avengers. I have no idea why, but he said that the gods didn't know that this had happened until now. They just found out that this happened and he said that he didn't have enough power to help us."

"Well that's useful." Thalia muttered with a dark look on her face. "But what about the avengers? Those people who were at the cornucopia with us?"

"Yeah. And we have to find them." I said grimly.

"But how can we trust them? And where are we supposed to find them?" Grover asked, annoyed.

"That's what I asked…" I said softly.

"He didn't tell you how, did he." Rachel knowingly stated.

"Ding ding ding!"

"Now that's really helpful." Thalia said, loaded with sarcasm.

There was another second of silence, before I spoke again.

"He also said that we could get out of here without anyone dying."

"Yeah? And how are we supposed to do that?" Clarisse asked, bitterly.

"I don't know. Hades didn't tell me."

There was another stretch of silence as I slowly got up off the floor. I swayed a little, but Thalia steadied me.

I looked up at Thalia. She had a look in her eyes like she was trying to figure out what do next. Like she was lost.

Rachel saved her. "Come on; let's go find a clearing to sleep in."

And find a clearing we did. Half an hour later, found us settling in a gap through the trees.

_I had learned my lesson now. No touching anything that was glowing. _

I sat down on the jungle floor. It was warm here at night, unlike the desert. The ground was soft because of the many leaves. It was a lot better than sleeping in the desert.

As I placed my sword next to me, I drifted off into a thankfully dreamless sleep.

**Phew, finally!**

**Sorry it took long. I had to do an essay for my English class and it took forever. **

**The next chapter is Percy's pov with Annabeth and Bruce!**

**And please, review! It brings joy to my pitifully boring life!  
-detective DG **


	16. Chapter 16

**Hello once again. **

**Ah, I have to do EQAO soon. It is so horrible! Studying and shit. **

**Anyways, this chapter might not have as much action as the rest of the chapters that I have been uploading, but there is a lot of Bruce angst!**

**This is after Percy and Annabeth see the Hulk transforming back to Bruce  
So here we go!**

Percy's POV

"Who the hell is that?" I asked very, _very_ surprised.

Annabeth and I were facing a man who looked like he was in his mid thirties, or early forties. He was passed out on the ground. Just a minute ago, he had been a huge green…monster ravaging though the forest.

I shook my head, totally speechless.

"I think he's one of the avengers." Annabeth observed.

I nodded in agreement. Of course he was one of the avengers. I just hoped he wasn't an enemy. He definitely did give off that vibe. He was a monster "and" a man. How was that even possible?

"What do we do with him?" I questioned.

"Wait for him to wake up. Maybe he can help us. It looks like he got separated just like we did." Annabeth replied.

I scoffed. "It's a wonder his jumpsuit didn't even get ripped."

I saw Annabeth scrunch her eyebrows together like she was in deep thought. "Yeah..."

Annabeth and I sat on the floor beside the unconscious man.

This morning, we had gotten up after having fought the sea dragon and left immediately. We really wanted to avoid another situation like that. My body still ached from fighting with it. My joints creaked with every movement. At least I didn't have any dreams the last night. It seemed that neither did Annabeth. At least that was what it seemed like. You could never be too sure with her.

It hadn't been long after we started walking when we came across the...thing? Person? I had no idea what to call this guy. I had a really hard time believing that this guy was actually hiding a monster within him. He looked like a normal person and yet just about ten minutes ago, he had been a huge green creature. Though, he wasn't like any of the Greek monster I have ever fought. It didn't seem like the sole purpose in his life was to murder us.

Annabeth seemed to have realized that as she stopped me from attacking. Though I doubted that even if I had attacked, I would've only made the thing more angry than actually hurt.

Annabeth and I sat in a pregnant silence, waiting for him to wake up so that we could ask him questions. As I sat, staring at his body, I started to notice a few things. He looked really tired, even in his sleep. It was like he had so many things to worry about. He was definitely not a half-blood. I didn't know of any god that could turn into a monster. Even if he wasn't a half-blood though, I wondered how the monster could see our weapons. When he had been in monster mode, it looked like he was staring straight at our weapons like they posed a threat to him (which they did). He wasn't a half blood, but he could still see our weapons. I wondered if he could see them in human mode, I thought. Maybe he was a descendant of a half-blood.

My train of thought was interrupted as the unconscious man stirred in his sleep. He was waking up. I heard him groan as his eyes flickered. I uncapped my sword in casethe monster came out again. Annabeth had the same thought as she took out her dagger.

The man on the ground slowly opened his eyes. They darted around, first looking at us, and then looking around us. He shook his head, like he was trying to clear it and his eyes finally came to a rest on our weapons. They widened in shock as he realized that they were pointed straight at his face. He saw our weapons.

How could he see them? Was he a monster disguised as a human, or a human who hid a monster? It seemed kind of likely to be the first one...but for some reason, I didn't think so. I had a gut feeling that he was only trying to fit in-trying to be normal. Just like I had in one point of my life. And I usually went with my gut feelings. Most of the time, they were right.

As the man noticed our weapons, I saw a flash of green pass in his eyes. Though it disappeared as he looked down quickly. I saw him scrunch his eyebrows as he looked at himself. I decided not to question what was so surprising.

Instead, I asked, "Who are you?"

He looked up at riptide, then at me, frowning all the while. "I think I should be asking you that."

Before I could answer with another smartass comment, Annabeth held up a hand in front of my face to silence me. Then she said, "You can see our weapons."

The man's frown turned deeper. "Well yeah, they're right in front of my face." He paused and then asked, "Who are you?"

Annabeth sighed and gave me a look saying, "_Don't worry; he's not a Greek monster."_ I decided that she was right and lowered riptide. If he had been a Greek monster, he would've attacked by now. Annabeth also lowered her knife. Then she said, "My name is Annabeth Chase and this is Percy Jackson. We are half-bloods."

There didn't seem to be a reaction in the man's face as Annabeth said our names. If he were a Greek monster, he would've recognized us.

"I'm Bruce Banner. Nice to meet you…I guess. I heard some half bloods were here. So what exactly is a half-blood?"

Me and Annabeth exchanged glances. "Bruce" still hadn't gotten up off the ground. He looked at us like he was assessing us and really didn't know who we were. Either he was really good at pretending, or this was all genuine.

"Half bloods are half human and…half god." I said. I was half expecting him burst out laughing when we said that. Instead, I saw his eyes darkening as he said, "What god exactly?"

"Greek. Percy over here is the son of Poseidon. I'm the daughter of Athena." Annabeth told Banner. He just nodded in realization, an awed expression on his face. I was still surprised that he hadn't started laughing yet and asking if this was all a joke. He accepted it a bit quickly. We weren't even supposed to be telling normal mortals this stuff, but I hardly thought that this guy counted as a normal mortal.

"So the myths are true…" He mumbled, more to himself than to us.

"Yes. Yes they are true." I inserted.

"I had studied some Greek mythology in grade school. It was quite interesting, though I got hooked on physics later. So you truly are half bloods?"

"Yeah we are."

Banner's eyes raised in mild surprise. He was way too calm during all of this. We had just told him that something he though was a myth is actually true in real life. Banner finally made a move to get up. It was getting kind of awkward looking down at him as we were talking. He got up slowly and then leaned heavily on a tree. I frowned. He looked weak, small. At first glance, you would think he was just any old person. I couldn't even wrap my mind around the fact that this person was not a real person. I had to know more.

"What are you?" I burst out, quite rudely.

I saw a brief flash of hurt cross over his face when I said "what" instead of "whom". I ignored it and looked at him expectantly.

"Well, like I told you, I'm Bruce Banner."

I narrowed my eyes. "Yeah?" I said sarcastically. "Cut the crap."

Banner sighed and pinched his nose with two fingers. I waited for him to answer.

Finally he said, "Well, as you probably saw, I can turn into that monst-the other guy that you saw. I'm part of the avengers and the…other guy is called the Hulk."

I noticed how he refrained from saying "monster". He didn't want to face the truth. I knew how that felt. Though I wondered how much it hurt to have that thing inside of him.

"How?" Annabeth asked out of the blue.  
"How what?"

"How did you turn into that…Hulk? I have a feeling you weren't born like that."

Banner ran a hand through his already dishevelled hair. "Well, you would be right about that." He whispered, barely audible.

I was about to question what happened when Annabeth gave me a glare so intense, it seemed to burn through my skin. I decided to drop the subject.

That was when a thought hit me. Banner had said that he was in the Avengers. I had a dream about that. That voice had told me to join the Avengers. My eyes widened. This was it. We had to join with him and his team. If we could gain his trust, we could gain his team's trust.

"The Avengers!" I said suddenly.  
Bruce flinched badly while Annabeth just looked at me with raised eyebrows.

"That dream I had! The voice had told me to join the Avengers!" I explained frantically to Annabeth until I saw realization dawn on her eyes.

"Yeah..." Annabeth said.

I glanced over to Banner and saw that he looked very confused at what we were talking about. "What's going on?" He questioned.

I sighed, exasperated at him and started to explain, "I had a dream where a voice told me that the other half bloods and I had to form an alliance with the avengers to get out of here. That's you!"

I saw Banner's eyes widen in realization as well before he said, "Tony's dream…"

"Who's that?" I asked.

"Huh? Oh that's nothing important." He said distractedly, waving a hand in the air.

I waited for him to say something more.

Finally he said, "Yes, I am an avenger. A superhero meant to protect the Earth." His eyes darkened as he said that. I couldn't really see how a monster like him could actually protect the air, more than destroy it. It seemed to like destroying things more than protecting them. He was definitely strong enough to.

Bruce continued, "I got separated from them when we were attacked by replica Hulk creatures."

When he saw our confused looks, he explained. "Hulk creatures are animals that can also turn into a mon-mon…monster." He shuddered ever so slightly when he said that. "The creature could smell me-it could smell the other guy." Banner stopped and looked at us with broken eyes. "I _had_ to run. I didn't want to put them in danger with two hulk creatures. Me and that animal. Thankfully I turned after I was well away from them. I ran, I met you and now I have no idea where they are."

As he finished, he looked down at the ground with dark eyes. I saw him clench and unclench his fists. I really hoped he didn't change now. I didn't think either of us was ready for that. Though, for some reason, I knew he had more control than that.

I felt sorry for him.

Here was a man battling his demons which were both emotional and physically alive as well. He had worse than us. And that was saying a lot. Who knew how long he had that thing in him. It could've been years that he had to live like that.

Annabeth seemed to feel sorry for him as well as she went up to him and tentatively put her hand on his shoulder. I saw him flinch ever so slightly at the motion.

She said, "It's going to be okay. We'll help you look for them. After all, we got separated as well. We know how it feels. Maybe we'll join up with both, the Avengers and the other half bloods." She gave him a dazzling smile as he looked up at her-the one she would only give me. I tried not to feel too jealous about that. I knew it was silly to think that-he was way too old for her-but I couldn't help it.

"Thank you." He muttered.

I waited for their little bonding moment to finish before I spoke again.

"We should start moving again." I said a little icily. Annabeth seemed to notice this as she raised an eyebrow at me. I ignored it. "By what you said about he Hulk creature, there could be more around here."

Banner nodded in agreement, probably just glad that he was being included in our group. I did not trust him at all yet. That would still take me a while. For now, I guessed we had no choice. It was either include him, or have a huge green monster as an enemy. I would rather not have that.

So we walked, with Annabeth in the lead and me walking beside her. We were slashing at the trees with Banner behind us since it seemed that he didn't have any weapons with him. Well actually, it didn't seem like he had much of anything with him.

Annabeth and I had taken up some conversation to fill in the deafening silence. Banner didn't seem to be the talkative type as he was just trailing behind us, not saying a word. We did try asking him some questions about how his life before the "hunger games" was like, but he had such a broken look in his eyes that we stopped asking.

After that, we had just walked in silence.

…..

"It was me."

I looked up at who had spoken. Annabeth, Banner and I had found a clearing to rest in for a while before setting off again. It had been quiet for a long time now, and someone had finally interrupted it.

Surprisingly enough, it was Banner.

"It was me." He repeated.

I scrunched my eyebrows at him. What was he talking about?

"What was you Bruce?" Annabeth asked. She had seemed to taken a strange liking toward the man.

"I turned myself into the Hulk."

My eyes widened. He seemed ready to tell us how it happened. Banner looked up at us with those broken eyes of his that made me think that he had been in so much.

"It was me!" He cried out in frustration, guilt laced in his voice. We waited in silence for him to continue. It was a few minutes before he spoke again in a shaky breath.

"I experimented on myself. I thought it would be the key to unlocking the super soldier serum that made Captain America!"

Captian America? I had heard of him before, vaguely. All I knew of him was that he was a supposed American hero in World War 2 and he had enhanced ability. Banner had tried to replicate that?

"I thought that the key was Gamma radiation."

I looked over at Annabeth and saw her eyes widen. I didn't know much about Gamma radiation. All I knew was that it was a type of…radiation? I would have to ask Annabeth later.  
Banner continued. "I exposed myself to Gamma radiation. Then the…accident happened. I almost killed the person I loved most of all. I killed so many people. Some I didn't even know."

I glanced at Annabeth again and saw that she was opening her mouth, wanting to say something, and then closing it again. She looked like how I felt. In shock. Banner would just experiment on himself like that? That was crazy! Why would he do that in the first place? Maybe he was so sure of himself that he didn't think the consequences through. I've done the same, but in completely different situations and for completely different reasons.

He spoke again. "Whoever was injected with the serum, whatever is dominant in them would become even more powerful. In captain America's case, it was his good soul. In my case, it was hidden anger." Banner looked at the ground bitterly. "I guess I've always had this monster hidden inside of me. I jut never realized it until now."

He started to laugh. His laugh almost turned maniacal. It was a little scary as I saw him shake with new bouts of laughter. The laughing slowly turned silent as I saw him shiver as he sat, looking at the ground.

Annabeth got up went to sit beside him. She glared at me and I went to sit beside her. I really didn't need the motivation. I would've gone anyways. I definitely wasn't that cruel.

Annabeth put a hand on his shoulder and I didn't see him flinch this time. I smiled softy at the scene. No one spoke and that spoke way louder than words.

A while later Banner had calmed down enough to look at the both of us. His eyes were streaked with green and I found that I actually wasn't cautious anymore. He was just one person who something unlucky happened.

Horribly unlucky.

I understood that there was no need to be cautious around him. He had himself under control from as much as I could see.

The green from his eyes slowly faded away and returned to a coffee brown colour. He looked away from us, stood up, and started walking away from the clearing. Annabeth and I looked at each other for a moment and then followed behind him. We had come to the conclusion that we could trust him. He didn't mean any harm whatsoever. He was just a person who happened to be thrown into all of this, just like us.

I think we can trust him.

….

It was already way past sunset when we found a clearing to sleep in for the night. We hadn't found the avengers or the other half bloods yet.

I was starting to worry now. Had the other half bloods even made it to the forest? And if they did, how would they be able to find us? So many question and not enough answers.

There were no cannon shots today, like there was yesterday when Nico's face had appeared in the sky. I still wondered what that was about. Did something happen to Nico? I pulled pieces of grass out from the ground. I saw Annabeth sleeping beside me already, looking peaceful. I saw Banner a few ways away, also sleeping. They had gone to sleep long ago. I still hadn't. I wondered why Banner seemed so distant all the time. Maybe it came with having an alter ego as a big green killing machine.

I sighed.

…

I had to go for a walk.

I had to get away from my own emotions.

Plus, I had to find some food or water. We weren't going to last much longer on the supplies we had.

I know what you're thinking. "_No Percy, don't go into the dark forest by yourself at night!"_ The problem was, was that I had to. An overwhelming urge to just get up and leave took over me. I had to get away from all the craziness for a while, or I would go crazy.

So I go up, as quietly as I could. I went over to Annabeth and placed a kiss on her cheek. She mumbled in her sleep and a smile came on her face, I smiled back even though I knew she couldn't see me. It seemed like a goodbye kiss, but it couldn't be. I would see her again of course.

I took one last glance at Banner and walked away.

I though I would be coming back and seeing the both of them in the morning. I would only realize later about how wrong I was.

**Oooooh cliffhanger! Where is Percy going? You'll find out sooon…**

**Anyways, next chapter is Tony's **

**Please give me feedback! I love reading it!  
-detective DG**


	17. Chapter 17

**Hey guys!**

**Oh my god! We got to 40 reviews! I never thought that people would actually read this story! But seriously guys, you are all awesome.**

**So this chapter is Tony's POV right after Bruce runs away. **

**And here we goooo….**

Tony's POV

"Bruce!" I shouted as he ran away from the rest of us. I was just about to fly after him as well before someone stopped me.

"There're more!" Fury shouted at us.

In the distance, I saw two more creatures that looked a lot like the animal that followed Bruce into the forest. I knew I couldn't afford to run after Bruce, but I wanted to so badly. I knew that the team couldn't handle one hulk creature on their own, let alone two. But all I wanted to do was go help Bruce. I clenched my teeth in frustration before turning away from the direction Bruce had run in.

I had to trust him to handle himself for now. I knew he would've turned into the Hulk by now and was probably fighting the other creature. Honestly, I was a little surprised at how long he had lasted without transforming. I didn't know he had it in him. He had shown some moves when he had dived and dodged the creature. I didn't know he could fight. I was impressed, to say the least.

I turned my attention back to the two creatures. They were both in monster form, kind of similar to our very own Hulk. One was battling Thor and Fury, while Clint, Natasha and Rogers took on the other.

They seemed to be having a hard time with it. Fury's knives and Natasha's guns didn't have any affect on the creatures at all. Roger's shield only made it angrier. Thor seemed to be having a sliver of luck with his hammer, but not by much. The creature would just keep getting up no matter how many times you knocked it down. Clint was trying to shoot it in the eyes, as it looked like it was its weak spot. Every time Clint notched another arrow, the monster would just dodge it, being impossibly fast.

I blasted off into the air to try and help the Cap and his crew. It looked like they were having a bit more trouble. I shot repulser blasts at its eyes, but as quickly as lighting, hands came up to block them. It was even faster than the original Hulk. Whoever made these things had done their homework.

I tried again, this time shooting at its belly, but the same thing happened. The Hulk creature would just block each and every one of my perfectly aimed repulser blasts.

I was getting pretty frustrated by now. At least with the Hulk, you had some chance of talking him down. With these creatures, there was no choice of talking. These things truly were mindless.

Because we didn't have our comlinks, I had to use the speaker in my suit to talk to the others. I landed beside Clint with a thunk. He quickly dodged a very cliché two hand smash.

"Okay, how do we defeat these things? They're so-damn-annoying!" I punctuated each word with more repluser blasts. Like that did anything.

Fury heard me and shouted, "We have to hit their weak spot all at once!"

"Yeah I got that much." I muttered. "Well, what the hell is their weak spot?"

"I'll let you know when I fucking find it!"

_Well that's just terrific!_

Now that we had no Bruce, there was no Hulk to fight these things one on one. I was 99% positive that the Hulk could beat these things no problem. But of course, he had decided to exit the scene. This was just great.

I took off into the air once again. That was when I had an idea.

"JARVIS, activate the timed radiation bombs."

Now, these bombs were radiation, but they were definitely not Gamma. It was a different type of radiation altogether. I had discovered it when I had discovered the new element for the upgraded arc reactor. A few days later was when I had discovered it to be exact. The good thing about these bombs was that they wouldn't harm us. At least the radiation wouldn't. The bomb of course was a different story. We could be standing right in front of the bomb and we wouldn't be poisoned by radiation. We might get some shrapnel lodged in many places in our bodies, but we wouldn't get radiation poisoning.

This bomb had been lying in my lab for weeks after I had made it. Just a few days after the attack in New York, I thought that it would be a good idea to add it to my older suit. I thought of it as a really powerful backup in an older suit in case something was to happen to my newer suit. Of course, I was right, like always.

The only bad news was that I had only installed two bombs. I thought that it would be too risky to add more than that. Two would be enough to kill only one of these creatures. And even that was a maybe.

It took a while for JARVIS to engage the bombs but once he did, he said, "_The bombs are ready sir."_

I heard a whirring and hissing as two bombs the size of my palm dislodged from both of my shoulders. They floated in the air for two seconds before soaring toward the creature. We had to move away from it.

"Guys move!" I shouted as best as I could from inside the suit. I guess I sounded urgent enough for them to listen.

Clint, Natasha and Steve scattered from the monster as fast as they could. They realized what I was doing and scattered behind some trees. I shot into the sky as high as I could before the bomb went off.

A second later, the two bombs detonated and for a few moments, all you could see was a ball of fire around the creature. As the fire finally evaporated into the sky, we were able to see what was left of the creature. A small fire surrounded a burnt carcass and a few odd bones here and there.

I looked back at the others and saw that they were looking at me with amazement.  
I smirked inside me suit. "Less gawking children, more fighting. I'll explain later. There's still one more creature left and I have no more bombs."

We all turned our attention back to where Fury and Thor were fighting. Thor threw his hammer at the things face, but it only slowed down. It was thrown back, only to get up and start fighting them all over again. This one seemed to be stronger and faster than the other creature I had blown up.

That would be a tiny problem.

Fury threw his knife like a dagger toward the animal's eye. This time, surprisingly, it found its mark. The creature let out an animalistic roar as green blood spewed from its injured eye.

The blood spewed every which way as it clutched its eye in agony. The good news was that it was injured. The bad news was when the blood spewed; some of it hit the Cap.

"Ahhh!" he screamed out as his red and blue jumpsuit fizzled where the blood touched. It was like acid burning away at the cloth. As the cloth burned away, the blood touched his skin. Rogers groaned as his skin burnt from the blood. He frantically tried to scrape away the blood but it didn't work as well as he hoped. Eventually, after a lot of rubbing, most of the blood was gone. But the damage had been done. I could see that his skin had been eaten away and the pink muscle was exposed.

"You okay?" I heard Natasha yell.

"Yeah, I'll be fine! We won't be unless we kill this thing though!"

I knew that because the captain was a super soldier, his wounds would heal quickly. He continued to help the rest of us fight the already injured creature.

I flew up, close to the monster's face, trying to distract it so someone else could shoot its other eye.

"Hey, shit face! Over here!" I cried out.

It worked.

The Hulk creature growled then looked up at me with new found fury pronounced in its face. It swatted at me like I was a pesky little insect. I dodged most of its attack.

"Ha, that all you got?" I provoked it.

Apparently that wasn't all it had to do with me, because the next swat it aimed for me hit its mark.

The creature had placed one well aimed back hand right where I was floating in front of my face. I tried to dodge it, but it was already too late. I felt a blunt force hit my ribs as I flew back into the trees. The creature had hit me with surprising strength. I hit the tree hard enough that I think I actually bent it. Well of course, that was probably just me.

I lay there for a while, black spots dancing in my vision. I felt a sharp pain in my chest area and knew that I had at least bruised a few ribs, if not fractured them. I could hear voices in the distance calling my name, but it was like I heard them through a pane of glass.

Finally, my vision cleared enough for me to see that the others weren't doing too well either. The cap still looked dazed, standing on the ground with blood spewing out of his arm. The others were trying to fight the monster, but it just wouldn't go down.

I hauled myself up off the ground as best as I could. As I stood, new spots filled my vision and I almost toppled over, but I forced myself to stay awake for as long as I could.

I mustered up all of my remaining strength and flew over to the scene of the battle.

"This creature be stubborn, for it is not dying!" I heard Thor boom.

"Yeah, kind of noticed." I groaned inwardly.

As I got to the battleground, I saw that the beast had just been hit by one of Clint's explosive arrows. Thor threw his hammer as well just as Clint shot his arrow. Both the weapons hit the beast's stomach at the same time. I watched for a moment as the creature snarled in…pain?

It retreated a couple steps back but quickly came back in anger, trying to land a punch on the archer and the god.

_That must be its weak spot._

My brain whirred as I slowly figured out a plan to defeat the creature.  
"JARVIS tell me, is the monsters stomach its weakest spot?"

JARVIS was silent for a second as he calculated the weakest spot in its body. Finally, a black and white image appeared in front of my face. It showed white circles where it was the weakest. The whitest circles were around its stomach area.

"I knew it." I mumbled to myself.

"_What was that sir?"_

"Nothing, nothing." I said, distracted.

"Guys," I said to the others. "We have to hit its weak spot."

"Yeah? And what's that?" Natasha asked with a grunt.

"The stomach. If we hit it there all at the same time, we might be able to kill it."

"Might?" Fury grunted.

I shrugged from within my suit and then winced from the pain it caused. "Hey, it's our best shot."

The others seemed to agree as they all assembled beside me.

"JARVIS, reroute all power to repulser blasts."  
"_Already done sir."_

I heard everyone else ready their weapons as we got ready to shoot at the villain.

I tensed, looking for an opening. The beast was coming toward us very slowly, as if it were mocking us. Its hands were around its stomach area. I waited for the creature to let its guard down. We had to wait two stressful minutes before I finally spotted an opening. The beasts hands slacked as it was about to punch at us. I tensed, waiting one second, two seconds. Finally…

"Now!" I shouted.

I blasted my repulser blasts at its stomach. The others shot their guns, threw their hammer/knives, launched arrows into the air, or threw their red and blue shield.

All of the weapons hit one spot-the stomach. There were no hands to block it this time. The animal screamed in agony as its belly was ripped apart by sheer blunt force, but it wasn't enough. The thing was still not dying.

"JARVIS more energy!" I said through gritted teeth.

"_Sir, there is only 20% power left. If we-"_

"I know! Just do it!"

"_Very well sir."_

I felt my energy sap slowly as more power went to my repulser blasts. They became significantly stronger.

Finally, after what felt like a century, the creature stumbled backwards. It slowly lost its balance and then fell on its ass, hard. The other stopped shooting and/or throwing their weapons. I tiredly lowered my arms.

"Well, we did it." I heard Rogers say, behind me.

I was about to obnoxiously reply when a wave of nausea hit me. I started swaying on my feet. I would've fallen back if Steve hadn't been behind me. He placed his hands on my metal shoulders and steadied me.

"Stark, you okay?"

"Yep, I'm totally fine." I had meant to say that sarcastically, but it didn't work.

"JARVIS, deactivate."

"_Yes sir."_

The suit whirred and span as it slowly disassembled itself back into a beaten up looking suitcase. Once the suit was off, I ran a hand across my chest. As soon as I touched it, I felt white hot pain shot through my body. It was a miracle I didn't pass out.

"Yeah, I think I've got a bruised rib here. Or two." I said, grinding my teeth against the pain.

Rogers put a hand under my shoulder to try and carry my weight. The blood that had touched him earlier was already healed because of his enhanced healing.

I tried to protest, but I was too tired to.

"We have to find Bruce." I said with a groan.

"He can handle himself. For now, we have to find a place to settle in. its getting dark," Fury said. "Can you walk Stark?"

"With someone's help, I think."

I started to limp forward and almost fell over again. Rogers supported most of my weight as we walked.

With every step, a new wave of agony would roll over me. My bruised ribs hurt like hell, and a terrible pounding in my head added itself to the pain. It seemed to take forever to until we reached our new "campsite".

When we finally did, I collapsed onto the floor in sheer exhaustion just as everybody else did.

We shared around the moss water bottles and we each drank a sip or two from it. We even shared some of our strange packaged foods, though it really didn't taste good.

Oh what I would do for a little scotch…

I lay down on the soft grass as I thought about where Bruce could be. What if the Hulk hadn't been able to defeat that thing? After all, all six of us were barely able to. But then again, he was the Hulk. They call him that for a reason.

But how were we ever going to be able to find him? How could he find us?

Agh! I almost cried out in frustration. Why the hell did he leave? He could've stayed with us and defeat the other two monsters. He has to know that the Hulk is an advantage for us, not a danger. Instead he ran. In the end he always does, doesn't he?

I stared up at the canopy of green trees and thought some more, my mind reeling with theories and ideas that I would have to add to my iron man suit. I found some weaknesses in it from the fight today.

That is, if we ever get back, a subconscious thought said in my head.

"Shut up brain." I whispered into the night sky.

I lay on the ground for a long time. I knew that this night, I wouldn't be able to go to sleep. My mind was too full of unanswered questions for that.

So that was where I lay, in my own misery and blinding pain.

**So how do you like it?**

**Please tell me your opinions in a review! I really love them and they keep me writing!  
-detective DG**


	18. Chapter 18

**Once again, hello all.**

**Man, I need to come up with better opening hellos. The ones I use are getting kind of boring. **

**Early update! YAY!**

**And I just finished my exams! Yes! Now I have six days off. Awesome.**

**So anyways, this is the chapter after Loki transports Luke to where he was in the forest. There has been a little time-lapse. **

Loki's POV

The stupid boy, the idiot boy.

He will be the pawn in my plan. He will be the person who will make everything possible. He will be the one.

He actually thinks that he will be able to win! Ha! I found that very amusing.

Of course, he would never realize it but I will wait until he kills the Half bloods. Then I will kill him.

I know what he thinks. He thinks that he can kill me before I kill him, but that will not be possible. I will kill him before he even gets the chance to think about killing me. He will just be another piece in the puzzle. My plan will not fail.

And the plan is grand.

I thought of all this as we waked through the forest. I had led Luke. I knew exactly where to go, but first we had to wait. Wait for the right moment. I had felt those two half bloods-Annabeth Chase and Percy Jackson-first. I knew their names of course. I even knew what they feared the most. I trained myself in that horrible prison in Asgard to feel someone when they approached. To feel their darkest thoughts and feelings. Do not ask me how, for I would not be able to answer you. It had just happened.

After those two arrived, I felt the avengers arrive. I smirked inwardly. They don't know the half of what is coming for them. They would be met with their worst nightmares. I had the power to do that now.

Then finally, I felt the rest of the half bloods arrive.

And still we kept walking to nowhere in particular. I did not tell Luke that I knew they were all here. That would only ruin my plan. Waiting for the right moment would be crucial, or it would not play out as I want it to.

Luke and I had seen that boy's head in the sky as well. His name was Nico, I knew that much. I also knew that if the boy's head was in the sky that meant that he was dead. I had conveyed this message to Luke but the strange thing was, was that his eyes scrunched up in confusion before he finally just hummed in acknowledgement. I was expecting a bit more reaction than that.

I decided not to dwell on it.

So now we were walking once again through the forest.

The forest was thick. Luke lagged on behind me, not daring to talk. I liked that about him. He knew who his authority was. I knew I had him wrapped around my finger.

But I also knew that he had his own plans for killing the half bloods.

I decided to go along and be clueless for the time being. Trap him in a false sense of security. Once he realized that I knew what he wanted to do and that he was doomed to die all along, he would be very, very surprised.

I chuckled quietly. This was going to be amusing.

We had walked through the forest for about three days now. Nothing exiting had happened so far. I had led us away from all the dangers that I could sense. And I could sense danger from miles away.

But it would get boring at times. So I had decided to have a little fun today.

Of course that was before I had the vision.

We had walked along, me leading and Luke following when something strange had happened. As I was about to take another step, the forest around me suddenly melted away. The things around me peeled and scraped away until I wasn't surrounded by greenery. I was in another world entirely.

It was dark and cold and blackness surrounded me. I stood on solid rock surrounded by space. I could actually see galaxy's surrounding me. They swirled and twinkled in the distance. It was beautiful in an oddly twisted way.

On the rock I was standing on, it was so dark that I could only barely make out the shape of a throne chair in front of me, nothing more. The few stars in the sky only gave off a bare amount of light.

On the chair in front of me sat a person. No, not a person…a thing. That was the only way to describe it for it was huge, many metres taller than any normal person. I could not see its face properly. The shadows that the few stars made seemed to dance over his face, blocking any familiar features. It was vaguely humanoid with disfigured arms and legs. He was like no frost giant I had ever seen even though he was the size of one.

"Hello Loki." He said in a voice that seemed to burn through my very soul, slowly but surely.

I licked my lips before I said, "Who are you?" with fake confidence.

The giant chuckled, if you could even call it that, with a voice that seemed to vibrate within me.

"Why, you should know! I was the one who planned everything to happen the way it did."

I had a strong feeling he was talking about the battle of New York. But I had lost that, even though I so hated to admit. How could this giant have planned that to happen? Surely he wanted to win if he did plan it.

When I didn't say anything further, the giant spoke up. "Yes, I planned everything. You losing, the Chitauri dying off. Everything that happened was meant to happen that way so that you could end up here. You see, I told the Chitauri to bait you into leading the invasion of Earth. I was their greatest leader even I if I wasn't on of them because obviously, I am not a Chitauri!" He laughed once again and I winced at the sound.

"In fact, I am the leader of many things, but we need not go there."

_So it was him._

I was supposed to lose. I was definitely caught off guard there and I rarely let that happen. I tried not to let that show in my face because I didn't want to the giant to have that satisfaction.

"Hah, yes, I planned it all. For I am Chealatos!" He shouted and it seemed to shake my bones. I stepped back a half step in surprise.

"So why have you called me here?" I asked slowly.

In the dark shadows, I barely saw the ghost of a grin creep up his face.

"To help you win. If you were to win this, the avengers would be dead and you would no longer have to worry about their threat. You would be able to take over the Earth and not have to worry about them. And I do know that this Luke character you have with you would like to do the same with the half bloods that I have information about. And once you do…let's just say that I have great plans for Earth."

I pause for a minute, thinking it over. Yes, it would be good to finally take over the Earth without those meddling Avengers. But there had to be a catch.

"Okay, so you help me win, I take over the Earth…and then what?"

"My plans will all be revealed in good time. For now, know this: you will have to win."

"And how do you suppose I do that?" I asked in frustration.

Chealatos chuckled once more and I gritted my teeth at the sound. "Why, by enhancing your powers of course! You will need to find three types of plants from the forest. You can even give some magic to Luke as well! But you will need to find these objects and it will not be easy. Are you up for it?"

"Of course!" I said a little insulted.

"Okay then. First you will need to find a flower in the shape of an arrowhead. You will be able to find this in the highlands. Second, you will need a leaf from the tallest tree in the forest. This tree will be found at the east edge of the forest. And finally, you will need a root from the rare bushwick plant. This can be found at the centre of the forest, the most dangerous place in this entire arena. None of the others have been there yet. Once you get all three ingredients, you will need to mush it into a paste and then finally, you will have to eat it."

_Is that it?_

That sounded much too simple. Collect three things and then eat them. There had to more to it than that.

Before I could question that, Chealatos spoke again. "This might sound easy, but I assure you, it is not. Once you get these ingredients and acquire your magic, you will be able to win. Now return and do not fail me."

Before I could utter another word, I was being sucked back to the forest. Green filled my vision as the trees around me came back into my vision. I had stopped walking and was standing in the middle of the trail, stock still.

Luke was poking me, trying to get my attention.

"Loki. Loki?"

I shook my head, trying to clear my vision and finally focused on Luke. His mouth was drawn into a thin line as he said, "What did you see?"

I wondered how he had known that I have had a vision. Perhaps he had experience with things like this. Form what I knew about him, he had been possessed by the evil titan lord Kronos.

So I said, "I have seen a vision."

That just seemed to conform his suspicions. For a fraction of a second, his eyes darkened, but then they turned stone cold just like they always were.

So I started to elaborate. "Last year I planned an invasion on New York. I used an alien race called the Chitauri. Unfortunately, I failed because of the Avengers and the Chitauri died off. Just now, I saw the Chitauri's leader-Chealtos."

I waited for Luke to say something, have any reaction whatsoever, but I saw none.

"He told me to find three things," I recalled what he had said. "A flower shaped like an arrowhead in the highlands, a leaf from the tallest tree at the east edge of the forest and finally the root from the rare bushwick plant in the centre of the forest."

Luke frowned. "So why do we need these things again?"

"To get more magic," I replied. "If we want any chance of killing the others, I would need more power. I do not have enough to do what I need to do because of that prison I was in after the failed invasion attempt."

"So why should I help you with this?"

"Because I can give you some magic as well. That way you will be able to use more than just your sword that you have."  
Luke smirked. "That sounds good. So where should we start?"

I thought for a moment before I replied. "Let us start with the arrowhead flower. That sounds like the easiest place to start-the highlands."

"And where are the highlands?"  
I sighed in exasperation. "Well of course that has to be a place that is hilly! I can sense some higher land to the west of here."

Luke humphed before he said, "Fine. Lead the way." He held out a hand, beckoning me to lead. I smirked before I started to walk, staff in hand. After a few minutes, I heard Luke say, "You better not be lying about giving some magic to me, or there will be consequences." I heard his blade scrape against his sword sheath.

I liked that about him as well. He was persistent and confident. Those were the type of qualities I needed as a partner. Hmm, maybe I wouldn't kill him after this was all done after all. Maybe I'll propose to him about joining my army. Just maybe…

"Yes, yes don't worry about that. I will give it to you." I waved my hand in the air dismissively.

And finally there was silence as we walked.

* * *

It took us about an hour to get to the highlands. The name fit. There was less trees and bush here. The trail was hilly with many rises and drops. I could hear Luke's laboured breathing behind me. I of course couldn't get out of breath. I was a god.

I had a hunch that this arrowhead flower would be on the tallest mountain. As we climbed the hills, we finally found the tallest of them all. It wasn't very hard to climb it. By the time we got to the top, Luke had to rest for a while to catch his breath. The top of the hill we were on was bare, with no trees and just a few small bushes. I stood by, looking around for the flower. Finally I spotted it in the distance. It was quite small and delicate looking, like if I touched it, the petals would just wither away.

As I was observing the scene, I saw Luke start to walk over to the flower. He had spotted it as well. I pulled him back harshly by the shoulder.

"Are you crazy?" I hissed. "This cannot be it. There has to be more. Do you want to get killed?"

Luke shrugged away from my grip on his shoulder but didn't object.

I slowly started to walk toward the flower, sensing around for any traps. I couldn't feel any traps around it for a seven metre radius.

I miscalculated. Bad.

Just as I was about to step on a spot that I thought did not have any traps, I heard a deep rumbling coming from beneath the ground. It slowly grew louder with each passing second.

"You idiot!" I heard Luke yell.

The rumbling steadily grew louder until the Earth beneath me finally cracked.

"This is not going to be good." I mumbled.

**Well there you have it. **

**I finally learned how to use those line break thingys! Yay me!**

**Oh well… next chapter is going to be Thalia!**

**-Detective DG**


	19. Chapter 19

**Hello all. **

**First off, I got to say that I love all of your reviews. Please continue to give me feedback! It helps me write the story.\**

**Oh and a reply to an anonymous reviewer: I would honestly be more afraid of Loki if he knew my secrets because that way, he would know my weakness.**

**So now, this is chapter 19. I honestly didn't think I would get this far, but somehow, I did. This chapter is after the other Half Bloods go to sleep after having Nico come back from the dead!  
Have fun reading!  
**

Thalia

"Hey, wake up. We have to leave now!"

Someone was shaking me. Who was it? I slowly opened my eyes to come face to face with Nico's wide, cornered eyes.

"What?" I asked groggily.

"We have to leave!"

There was a sense of urgency in his voice and that snapped me out of my sleep deprived mind. It was still dark around me, with just a few hints of a rising sun. I got up off the ground and saw that everyone else was already awake. They were gathering their things as quickly as they could. I picked up my bows and arrows as well as my spear quickly.

I soon realized why we were in such a hurry.

I heard an ominous sound. It sounded almost like hissing. I squinted my eyes, trying to find out where it was coming from.

That was when I saw trees topple down in the distance from a foreign force. The strange thing was that I couldn't see anything but a strange-looking fog.

"What is that?" I asked.

Nico answered. "The thing that we're running away from! Come on, it's destroying everything in its path!"

I didn't need to be told twice. I ran after Nico thinking that we had to outrun this fog. It was burning right through everything in its path like it was acid. I had a feeling that if it touched us, it would do the same and burn through our skin.

"let's go!" I shouted at the others.

No one needed my warning. They had already started running.

We all ran as fast we could away from the menacing gas but it was catching up too quickly. I heard trees toppling down behind us. I could almost feel it licking the sides of my arms, but I tried to tell myself that it was just my imagination.

"It's not slowing down!" I heard Clarrise's voice as we whizzed through the forest.

"Kind of noticed." I muttered to myself.

In the distance, I heard all kinds of animals and birds screeching from inside the forest, trying to get away from the gas. It would be a lot easier for the birds, I thought.

My breath was coming in gasps by now. We had ran for at least ten minutes and the gas was still not slowing down. I wondered if it ever was going to slow down. My legs yelled at me in pain, telling, no, begging me to stop. Finally, I caved in, slowing down for a fraction of a second for I was sure I was going to drop.

It was a bad idea.

I felt the gas lick the sides of my body and this time I wasn't imagining it. I felt hot pain shoot up my arm because of the gas.

"Ah!" I exclaimed in pain.

The gas was ebbing away at my skin-I could feel it. I didn't want to look at it. I had a feeling it looked horrible.

The others were now well ahead of me. I sped up, willing my legs to go as fast as they could. I wasn't seeing a way out of this mess. I could barely keep myself from passing out because of the pain in my arm. We couldn't keep running forever.

Black spots span in and out of my vision. I couldn't keep going any longer, I was sure of it.

Two minutes later I barely heard someone shout, "We have to climb down this cliff!"

What the hell? Where the hell did a cliff come from? By now, I was running to the far left of everyone so I wasn't seeing what everyone else was seeing.

I turned back to the scene in front of me and that was when I saw it. A drop in elevation that I knew could only mean one thing. The cliff.

I almost froze on the spot. The only thing that kept me going was the menacing gas behind me. I saw a brief glance of Rachel and Clarrise to my far right through the trees. The cliff in front of them was far less steep than what I was facing. Running to them would take far too long. That way, the gas would take me as its prisoner for sure. I had only one choice and that was going head on toward the steep rock face.

_Holy shit. I'm going to fall off this cliff and die and nobody is going to be there to save me. _

_I'm going to die. _

But I had no other choice. It was either die by the acid gas where I had no chance of at all of surviving, or falling down the cliff where I had a slim chance of surviving. The last choice seemed a bit better than the first because there I had a chance of surviving, no matter how slim. I had to go down this cliff.

My mind was seizing up. I couldn't think anymore. I was getting tunnel vision. I couldn't do this. I felt the blood drain from my face.

In no time at all, I saw the cliff right in front of me, barely a few steps away. I had a moment's hesitation before stepping off the cliff.

Then I almost forgot to breathe.

As I took my next step, my foot met air. I vaguely saw the others at the bottom of the cliff. They had noticed me and were shouting something, but I couldn't make out the words. I actually couldn't hear anything-not even the gas. All I could hear was the air whizzing past my ears.

Time slowed down as I tumbled through the air. I saw the ground approaching at an impossible speed. I scrunched my eyes shut to avoid watching. I was terrified. I thought I was going to die.

I hated this feeling. The feeling of weightlessness. I scrunched my eyes shut harder. I couldn't bare this. My heart beat was going a mile a minute. This had to stop. I couldn't stand it anymore. This was torture. It would be better if I just hit the ground already instead of this.

_No. This had to stop_.

As soon as I thought that, I felt a sudden change around me. I was standing on something. What was it? I couldn't have already hit the ground. I didn't feel any impact.

Was I dead? No, that couldn't be possible. I was still breathing and I could feel my heartbeat pounding in my head. That was when I realized that my eyes were still closed. I slowly opened one eye, then the other.

What I saw was nothing short of a miracle.

I was in mid-air, standing on…something.

It felt like a cushion of air. It was the strangest feeling. I turned around full circle in wonder and awe.

But then I though about where I was. I was in the air. Standing on nothing.

My breath caught in my throat out of fear. I was facing my greatest fear. My heartbeat raced even faster than it was before if that was even possible.

I had to get down. I didn't want to be here anymore.

I collected all of my remaining strength and put it into trying to descend down as gently as I could. I was already about half way down the cliff so I only had a bit left to go.

I felt beads of sweat roll down my forehead. My movements were jerky and out of control. I almost fell all the way to the bottom because of that. It would only be a matter of time before I fell all the way to the bottom.

And of course, I was right.

Just as I was a quarter of the way down, I lost all of my concentration. I tumbled all the way down to the forest floor. I felt white-hot pain shoot up my right leg as I hit the ground forcefully.

The pain of that, along with the pain from the gas on my arm was enough to send me into the endless darkness.

…..

I woke to searing pain in both my right leg and arm. I groaned as I slowly opened my eyes. I was met with the concerned faces of my friends.

"What the hell happened?" I asked with another groan.

"Well, you kind of…fell?" Grover said.

That was when it all came back to me.

I remembered that there was that gas and I had no choice but to fall off that cliff. And I actually flew?!

I sat up quickly but was met with a bout of nausea. I noticed my obviously broken foot and the raging red spot on my right arm. I placed a finger on it tentatively but quickly took it away when fresh pain shot up it.

I finally looked up at the my friends. They were looking at me with apprehensive expressions on their faces.

Finally, Rachel spoke up. "So…what exactly happened?"

I looked at her tiredly. It seemed that little flying stunt had not gone unnoticed. And that it had really sapped my energy.

"Well, I think that I just flew." I replied. I was still shaken by what I had just seen and done. Knowing that I could fly wasn't going to rid me of my fear of heights any time soon.

"_Just_ flew?" Nico asked, bewilderment lacing his voice. "You fell from a 40 foot cliff, actually flew and lived to tell the tale. And you're saying that you _just flew?"_

I frowned at him. "It's not like I planned that to happen."

He ignored me. "How come you've never done that before? That was amazing!"

I sighed. I had to tell them about my fear of heights some time or another. I couldn't keep it a secret for all my life. If I wanted to trust them with my life, they needed to trust me.

"Guys, I have a confession to make." I hesitated again. Was this the right decision? But I couldn't back down now. It was already too late.

"I'm afraid of heights."

I paused, waiting for the information to sink in. I looked up at their faces and saw that they had pure shock written all over them.

"Wait, a daughter of Zeus, afraid of heights?" Nico finally asked.

"That what Percy said." I muttered. "And yes I am afraid of heights. You guys got a problem with that?" I demanded.

"No, no," Clarrise started. "It's just that, could that become a problem for us?"

"Don't worry about that." I snapped. I could take care of myself in a fight without worrying about my fear of heights. I had already promised myself that I wouldn't use my power of flying again.

I tried to get up but almost fell as I put weight on my broken foot. I gritted my teeth as Rachel steadied me.

"Hey, take it easy. You hurt your foot pretty bad when you fell."

I bit the inside of my mouth. This wasn't good. We wouldn't be able to go anywhere with my broken ankle.

"Here, I can make you a splint." Clarrise said. "I have some experience in making these things."

Just as Clarrise was about to leave to look for some good pieces of bark to use for the splint, I heard something. It sounded like…beeping? Where was it coming from?  
"Guys, look over there." I turned my head to see Grover point to something in the distance. He was pointing at a strange looking parachute and a small gray sphere attached to it. The parachute continued to give off an annoying beeping sound as it gently floated down to rest on the forest floor a few ways away from us. As it landed, the beeping stopped and it grew quiet once again.

We all stared at it in silence.

"You think we should touch it?" Nico asked out of the blue.

I thought about it for a few minutes. It seemed highly convenient to just appear out of nowhere when I was injured. It could be a trap…or it could be something highly helpful.

"Nico, take it."

Nico looked at me like he was about to object, but then simply walked over to the thing and picked it up apprehensively. He had his eyes closed and held the thing away from him like he was expecting it to blow up in his hand or something.

Thankfully it didn't.

Just as he was about to give it to me, there was ominous hiss as the container opened up. We all peered inside of it anxiously to find out what it is.

"Its…ambroisa!" Rachel exclaimed.

"What?" I muttered, confused. Where did ambrosia come from? It seemed like a horrible coincidence. What if it was poisoned?

Grover took the baggy of ambrosia out from inside of the container. He opened it and sniffed it.

"Well, it smells okay. No poison or anything at least."

Nico laughed nervously. "Well that's okay…right?"

I furrowed my eyebrows. I had learned over the years to trust Grover's nose and if he said it wasn't poisoned then I would have to trust him. So I did. I took the bag from Grover and opened it. I broke off a piece of ambrosia and put it in my mouth.

It tasted like the hot pea soup my mom used to make before…the entire mess happened. I closed my eyes and let the ambrosia do its work. I felt the pain ebb away from my arm and slowly the pain in my ankle transformed into a dull throb.

I finally opened my eyes and found that the wound on my arm had turned into a thin white line. My ankle wasn't fully healed though. I decided to eat just a bit more ambrosia-just enough to speed the healing. I had to save some just in case something happened to the others.

A few seconds later and the pain in my ankle was barely noticeable. I still had a bit of a limp, but I would have to make do for now.

I straightened myself and leaned off of Rachel.

I sighed and said, "We should keep moving. We don't want to see that gas again."

I heard Nico let out a breath of bewilderment. "You just flew and you're not even going to explain how you did it?"

I grimaced, feeling a bit annoyed and Nico being so nosy.

"What is there to explain? I flew and that's that. Now let's go."

I started walking away from the cliff. I was thankful Nico at least understood that I didn't want to talk about it as he left me to my own thoughts.

To say the truth, I was completely astonished. And even that was a huge understatement. I had just flew even when I was deathly afraid of heights. I never even knew Zeus's children could even do that. Maybe it was because I was too scared to try. I had never really given it much thought before. It had never occurred to me that a child of Zeus could do that.

And now that I could…what if something happened and I needed to save my friends and flying would be the only way to dot that? Could I do that? Would I chicken out?

Agh, so many unanswered questions. I hated that. I hated the uncertainty of the future. That was why I always thought minute to minute. I never thought about what could happen in the future. I only thought about the now. And the now was being able to fly.

It was a part of me was telling me that flying was a bad idea and the other half was telling me the complete opposite. I was having a battle with myself that I knew I would lose. I felt like I was being torn in half. It was the most horrible feeling.

When I had seen Nico almost die, I had felt horrible. I didn't even notice him touching that plant. I didn't and couldn't do anything. Nothing at all. I had felt _so_ helpless. Ever since we had all gotten here, everyone looked up at me to lead. I felt responsible for getting them to safety. And now I felt like I had betrayed them.

I knew in the back of my mind that I couldn't have done anything. But that didn't stop me from feeling guilty.

"Hey, you okay?" I heard someone approach from behind me. It was Nico.

At first, I thought of snapping at him to go away, but soon realized that that wouldn't have been fair. So finally, I sighed and said, "No I'm not okay. When I saw you touch that tree, I thought you died and that it was my entire fault. I felt like I had betrayed you."

Nico looked at me with a worried expression on his face. "but you didn't. im still here."

"I know but you weren't breathing Nico. We were worried. _I_ was worried."

Nico placed one of his cold hands on my shoulder. I looked down at his hand then at his face. He was smiling his usual sad smile.

"Hey, it'll be all right. We'll get out of here. I promise you."

I wished he hadn't promised me. That had made it sound official. Like he would do anything for the rest o fus to get out alive…

Just as I was about to say something back to him, I heard a rustling in the trees next to us.

It slowly grew louder as I signalled for the rest of my friends to stop. We circled around where the rustling was coming from. I notched an arrow in my bow and pointed it at the trees. The others followed my lead and got their weapons ready.

Just as I was about to shoot, I saw a figure of a person come out of the bushes.

"Whoa, watch where you point those things!"

**Heheh…*nervous laugh*.**

**Sorry! I couldn't resist!**

**It was too tempting!**

**Don't worry, I'll update as soon as I can!**

**Please read and review! I love them! **

**-Detective DG**


	20. Chapter 20

**I updated!**

**Well, this is Percy's chapter and you'll find out what happened after he went wandering away from Bruce and Annabeth in the night**

**And here we go!  
**

* * *

Percy

* * *

Something was wrong. I had noticed that as soon as I started walking away from the camp where Banner and Annabeth were sleeping.

I couldn't stop walking.

At least an hour had passed by now and it was like I had an overwhelming desire to just keep walking.

It was like something was whispering into my ear to keep me walking. I knew I had to get back to Annabeth and Bruce. If they woke up and noticed that I was gone, they would freak. Or I could get lost and not be able to find my way back. Though I knew it was already too late to prevent either from happening. I had no idea where I was and I just kept on walking.

This had to be the strangest thing I've ever felt. I still knew what I was doing, but it was like I couldn't control my own actions. Something or someone was compelling me to keep going.

Where was it taking me? Was it leading me somewhere good or bad? I had a feeling that it was the latter.

I had to snap myself out of this.

I tried my hardest to stop walking. I willed my legs to stop moving, but they wouldn't listen to my brain. I was close to a panic now. What if I was being led to a monster?

I almost cried out in frustration. Where was I going?

I had my sword out and I was slashing at the trees in front of me. At this rate, I would make my way to the edge of the forest. I had to stop myself. But how?

I tried to gather all of my willpower and stop my feet from walking. It didn't work.

I was running out of ideas now. I didn't know what to do.

So I had no choice but to settle in and wait for all of this to stop.

After all, it wasn't like I had a choice.

…

It had been at least two hours since I had started walking. I was now deep in the forest and I had no clue about where I was.

The sun had risen the hour before. Annabeth and Banner were probably both awake by now and wondering where I had gone. I bet Annabeth was worried sick. I hated this. I hated leaving Annabeth alone like that. Why had I gone in the first place? I was so stupid!

And of course, I kept walking.

It was at least another hour before something finally happened.

It was about midday now. I could tell because I had passed a clearing a few minutes ago and the sun was high in the sky.

Then suddenly, as I was walking, I felt as if the control that was washed over me suddenly lifted off me. I stopped walking abruptly and stood in the middle of another small clearing, very much stupefied.

I scrunched my eyes in confusion as I looked down at my legs. I no longer had the overwhelming urge to walk forward. As I got over my confusion, I sighed in relief. At least that was over.

But I had another problem.

I had no idea where I was. I was in the middle of the forest and I had no idea how to get back to Annabeth.

I turned around in a full circle to survey my surroundings. All around me were of course, trees. I saw no way back. I had to face the truth that I was completely and utterly lost.

Because I had nothing else I could do, I started walking once again. At least this time, it was on my own terms. I hacked through the branches once more.

As I was walking, I noticed something strange. Throughout the forest, I heard a strange four note song being played again and again. I soon realized that birds were tweeting these notes. They were unlike any bird I have ever seen before. It was a little captivating as I heard it play over and over. Soon, the song would fade into the distance. Hmm, I wonder…

I whistled the four note song into the canopies and sure enough, the birds repeated them once again.

"Wow…" I muttered. The song once was once again repeated throughout the forest by so many birds of the same type. It was mesmerizing. As the song disappeared into the trees, I decided to make up my own tune.

I hummed the tune first. Once I got the four notes, I whistled them out loud into the trees. The tune was made up of one high note, two low notes and one medium note. I heard the tune being sung back to me by the strange birds. I smiled softly. Something about it being sung back to me was oddly comforting.

I heard the song slowly fade into the trees again, but this time it sounded a little different. It was almost like the tune from the original song and the one that I made were melding together. It made up a totally different song, but all the same, it sounded calming.

Once that died out, I kept walking. I would whistle my tune into the air every once in a while just to hear the birds whistle them back to me. I just wanted some company, even if they were random birds tweeting into the air.

But that soon ended when I heard noises of people walking through the forest.

To the left of me was where it was coming from. I heard branches crack and the shuffling of a group of people walking. There was definitely more than one person. It sounded like there was at least three people. Maybe more.

_Oh no._

Were they the enemy? I only had my sword and there were at least three armed people approaching me.

As they got closer, I heard muffled voices. They sounded almost…familier. Could they be…?

No, they couldn't. I didn't even know if they had reached the forest or not? But then again…

Agh, I had to check. I quietly walked toward the direction I heard the voices from. There was a small path that was covered with bush on both sides. I kneeled down next to the path, hopefully covered by the trees. I waited with my sword drawn and ready out in front of me. I heard them approaching closer. I shifted my weight from one foot to the other and heard a twig snap in half.

_Crack!_

Aw shit.

I held my breath as I heard the group of people draw their weapons. I heard someone approach as they removed the branches covering my body from them.

And I came face to face with…Thalia.

My eyes crossed to see the sharp point of one of her bows right at my nose.

"Whoa watch where your pointing those things!" I exclaimed in surprise.

"Percy?!" Thalia asked, both confused and surprised.

"Thalia?" I asked, equally confused.

Thalia put away her bow and helped me off the ground. As I stood up, I looked around at the people with Thalia. I saw Nico, Clarrise, Rachel and finally, Grover. My eyes widened as I took in everything. I found them! Was I deliberately led to them? Was that presence leading me to them?

I was greeted with a bunch of thumps on the back and hellos from the others.

Finally, Nico brought up a question that everyone was probably thinking of.

"Where's Annabeth?"

I sheepishly ran a hand through my hair before saying, "Well, I _was_ with Annabeth yesterday. We were in a clearing when I got this really big urge to just get up and start walking. So I had to. I had no choice. It was like I was taken over by someone or something else. Then, when it finally lifted off me, I had no idea where I was. Then I found you guys."

They looked at me with blank stares.

"I know it sounds stupid! But if you were there…" I trailed off.

"So you basically lost Annabeth." Clarisse deadpanned.

"Well, if you want to put it that way…"

"Wait," Rachel interrupted. "There was someone else with you guys wasn't there?"

I looked at her, confused at how she knew. Then I reminded myself that she was the oracle. She was supposed to know these things.

I started slowly, "Uh, yeah there was someone else with yes. We found him-well actually, he found us. His name's Bruce Banner. He's part of the Avengers."

I saw Nico's eyes widen. "My father told me that we had to join the Avengers!"

"Your father?" I asked him.

"Yep. I, shall we say, "visited" him."

I squinted my eyes. I hate to admit it, but yeah, I was a little jealous of him. What about Poseidon? I haven't heard a word from him since the battle with Kronos.

Thalia sighed and then elaborated. "I'm guessing you saw Nico's head in the sky, right?" I nodded. "Well that was because he had died. He stopped breathing."

My eyes widened in shock. So that was what that meant. If a person's face appeared in the sky, that meant they were dead. No one had appeared in the sky since Nico. That meant no one had died since then. But then there was the question of how Nico was still alive.

Nico spoke up again. "My dad gave me a second chance. He gave me life once again." It was like Nico had read my mind. I nodded slowly as I soaked in this new piece of information. At least he was still alive.

"so what about this Banner character?" Grover asked. " I heard that the avengers were superheroes. Does he have any powers?"

I sighed. "Well, I think it would be more appropriate to call it a curse. Whenever he gets angry or his heart rate rises, he turns into a green rage monster that destroys everything in its path."

Clarisse's eyes widened. "A monster? Isnt that a bit dangerous?"

"This isn't like any monster your thinking about. And this guy didn't ask to become this thing!" I said, becoming defensive. "He turned himself into it accidentally and he hates himself for it."

Thalia looked skeptical. "And this guy's helping you?"

"Well, its more like we're helping him. He's been separated from the other Avengers. So if we help him find them, then maybe they'll be able to trust us. Then we can work together to defeat whoever we need to defeat." I replied.

Thalia raised an eyebrow in surprise. "That sounds like the best plan I've heard in a while. And coming from you Seaweed Brain, now that's pretty amazing."

I scowled and willed a stream of water from a nearby puddle to hit her in the face. I smirked in satisfaction.

"Hey!"

Thalia touched me on the arm and I felt a shock of electricity run through my body. My hair stand on end.

"Ow!" I said as I rubbed the area where Thalia had touched me. Just as I was about to summon another spray of water, Nico broke us up.

"Hey, break up the cat fight over there! We should be leaving if we want to find Annabeth.

I glared at Thalia and she glared back. Nonetheless, we broke the fight.

I sighed and said, "Lets go." Thalia and I took up the front and started to lead the tothers.

A few minutes into the trek and Nico spoke up. "Hey Percy." He paused, like he was waiting for some type of invitation.

"Yes?"

"Did…you know that Thalia flew?" I stopped in my tracks and looked over at Thalia with disbelief on my face.

I could see anger burning in Thalia's eyes, directed toward Nico. Finally, she said, "Yep. I flew. After I fell off a cliff."

"What happened?" I asked, with my eyes wide. The last time I checked, she was afraid of heights. Was I missing something?

"there was a gas following us that would burn everything in its path. As we were getting away, I fell off a cliff. And that was when I learned that I could fly."

I raised my eyebrows in confusion. "But I thought you were, you know…" I waved my hands in the air, trying to imply that she was afraid of heights.

"The rest know. It's okay Percy."

I let out a breath of relief. "Oh. Anyways, I thought you were afraid of heights?"

"I still am. I guess I could always have flown. I just never tried."

"Hold up a second. Percy knew you were afraid of heights?" Nico exclaimed.

"Yeah." Thalia replied.

"how-?" Nico started to ask, but Thalia cut him off with one of her famous death glares that could scare even Nico.

And that was when she dropped the subject. She didn't say anything else. I had a feeling that she was more afraid of flying than she let on. So I decided not to bother her about it too much. For now at least.

So we started walking again.

_At least I found everyone else._

Now we just had to find Annabeth and Bruce again.

I was still miffed about what had happened earlier. How could I have just let that happen to myself? I let myself be taken away from Annabeth. If I hadn't walked away in the first place, I could still be with Annabeth now.

And what if something happened to Banner and he turned into that monster again? There would be no one to protect her. I knew she could handle herself, but I doubted it with Banner.

We had to find them.

Before it's too late.

* * *

It was well after dark now. We had stopped about half an hour ago at a clearing. There was no cannon shot today. No one had died.

We had all just sat down, drinking the water and food that the other had collected. We started sharing some of the adventures we had while being here. I forgave them for "ditching" Annabeth and I at the cornucopia, realizing that it was all just a big misunderstanding. I told them more about Banner and the Avengers and Nico told me about his dream.

Soon enough, we all started to drift off into sleep. I was the last person to go to sleep.

unfortunately, I was met with a dream.

_..._

_I was in my cabin at Camp Half Blood. It looked exactly the same as it always did before the entire black hole fiasco, but something seemed…off. Something wasn't right._

_I noticed that I was wearing normal Camp clothes. My Half Blood t-shirt and shorts. _

_I turned my attention to the cabin and started walking around. As I moved, I noticed that the edges of my vision were blurring into black softly. It was strangely unnerving._

_As I walked, I noticed something else as well. At the far corner of the room lay a small black box, the size of my palm. For some reason, it stood out to me, telling me to come closer, to pick it up and open it._

_I slowly walked over to it and saw that there was a small padlock attached to it. Just as I was about to reach over and grab it, the door to my cabin blew open. A gust of wind and rain came in and blew me a few steps back. _

_I covered my face with my hand so that none of the wind would blow into my eyes. When I removed my hand, I saw none other than Poseidon standing in my doorway._

"_hello Percy."_

_He was wearing Bermuda shorts and a Hawaiian shirt. In one hand, he held his trident. It looked really out of place with what he was wearing. I also noticed that he didn't look like he normally did. I saw that there were no smile wrinkles near his eyes and no overall kindness to his face. That was all gone. He looked more tired, like he had a hundred burdens weighing down on him._

_So I scrunched my eyebrows in suspicion and replied with a, "Hello…dad."_

_What could be so important that my dad visits me in a dream to tell me?_

"_You must be wondering why I am here." He looked at me with his sea green eyes a little questioning._

_I nodded slowly._

"_Well, as you know, you are in the hunger games. And you also know that to succeed, you will need to join the Avengers. Am I right?"_

_I nodded once again, not saying anything more._

"_That is all well and good, but the real reason I am here is because of that." Poseidon pointed to the little black box sitting next to me._

_I picked it up and rolled it around in my hand, observing it from every angle. Finally, I looked up and said, "What is it?"_

_The ghost of a smile appeared on my fathers face, but it was so faint that it disappeared in a second. "That is for you to find out, my child."_

_I tried to pry open the look, but it wouldn't open._

"_I wouldn't do that if I were you."_

"_Why not?"_

"_That box is enchanted so that when you open it, what you need the most will appear for you, even if you do not know what that is. You will know when the time is right. But of course, with every gift comes a sacrifice."_

_Poseidon held out the hand that wasn't holding his trident. At first, it was empty, but then a key the size of my index finger appeared in his palm. I reached over and took it from him. I turned it over and saw that it had little engravings of Hippocampus, Pegasus and a few other creatures I didn't recognize. The engravings were small, but full of detail. I slipped the key into my pocket and looked back up at Poseidon. _

"_remember son, when you open it, there will be consequences. Either big or small. You will know when the time is right."_

_He walked back to the door of my cabin. Before stepping back out into the storm, he turned his head slightly in my direction and said, "Good luck child."_

_Then he stepped out and dissolved into the rain, leaving me alone in my cabin._

_I looked at the box beside me. It looked so harmless. I knew that was just a disguise for something sinister though. I decided there that I would not open it unless I absolutely had to. I couldn't take the chances._

_But somehow, I knew, deep in my subconscious that opening the box was inevitable. _

_I slipped the box into my pocket along with the key._

_That was when I started to feel myself wake up._

…_.._

As I woke up, the first thing that I noticed was that it was still dark. Everyone was still asleep.

A few seconds later and my dream hit me in full force. I quickly checked the pocket of my jumpsuit and felt the small key along with the cool surface of the box.

I took out the box and key. I suddenly got an overwhelming urge to open the box. For some reason, my hands were itching to see what was in the box. It was like the box was drawing me towards opening it.

I clenched my hands into fists to stop me from opening it. Now was not the time. I quickly put both objects back into my pocket and tried to forget about them.

It didn't work.

Both objects seemed to make me feel heavier-like an extra burden I had to carry.

I laid back down on the grass to try to go back to sleep. I realized soon enough that it was too late for that. Sleep had escaped me. All I could do was stare at the sky above, and keep thinking about the box.

_This was going to be a long night._

**So? How was it?**

**Like it? Don't like it? Please leave a review and tell me how it was!**

**Next chapter is luke.**

**-Detective DG**


	21. Chapter 21

**Allright guys, so this is chapter 21.**

**Damn…21. I really did not know that I could get this far into the story. And don't worry guys, the story is not done just yet! There's gonna be a few twists before that!**

**Oh, and we left off here when Luke and Loki were about to get their first item for their magic soup, but Loki activated a booby trap.**

**So here we go!**

Luke

How could Loki be such an idiot? He knew that there was obviously a trap and still he walks right into it. And now he's rigged it.

There was a deep rumbling as the ground beneath us shook. Loki stumbled, a few feet away from me. He slammed his staff into the ground to keep himself from falling to the ground.

I was not as lucky.

I stumbled and fell to the ground with a thump. I slowly tried to get back up and managed to by holding a nearby tree branch.

"What's happening?" I shouted in Loki's direction.

Loki grunted and said, "I do not know!"

I looked at the ground and saw thin, hair like cracks appeared on the surface. They zig zagged through my feet and around the flower. They surrounded the flower and slowly opened up to reveal a huge abysses filled with fire and rock. Columns of fire and rock erupted from the cracks like they were volcanoes in the middle of an eruption.

I quickly dove to the side as a crack that I wasn't paying attention to opened up beneath my feet. As I landed to the solid rock beside it, a huge column of hot magma erupted from the crack. I had escaped in the nick of time.

Still, the ground around us was not done falling apart. All around us, there were small islands of land surrounded by cracks spewing red hot fire. It was like we were standing in the middle of a sea of lava. The flower stood innocently on it's own island dead in the centre.

I saw Loki dive to the side as a stray column of lava was thrown at him.

"We have to get out of here!" I shouted. "Forget the flower!"

"Never!" He shouted back.

Loki started to jump from island to island as they moved around in the sea of lava. With his staff in hand, he almost seemed to be adding extra power to his jumps. I was sure he was using magic so that he wouldn't lose his balance and fall into the pit of fire.

But I knew he had limited power. Sooner or later he would lose his power and fall to his death. I had to go help him.

As I looked down, I noticed that I was standing on an island of my own. I was surrounded with cracks on all sides. I had no way out and I was far away from the centre island where Loki was headed. I had to hurry if I wanted to catch up to him.

I walked over to the pit I had to cross to get to the platform with the flower on it. It went down, deep into the earth and I could see a river of lava way down there. I was careful not to get too close to the edge as not to fall in. The earth around us was still rumbling and groaning.

I backed up from the crack a bit. I decided that to get anywhere, I would have to jump. Hopefully I would make it.

I looked back at the crack and let out a small puff of air.

_Well here goes everything._

Then I started running.

I ran as fast as my legs could carry me towards the break in the land, and when I was just a foots length away from it, I pushed of my back foot and jumped.

It was exhilarating to say the least.

I was in the air and everything around me seemed to run in slow motion. The lava way beneath me, Loki running toward the flower, everything.

I saw the edge of the platform approaching. I brought my feet forward to land firmly on the ground.

Then my feet touched solid ground. I planted my feet and absorbed the shock by bending my knees.

I was safe. I had made it.

I let out a breath of air that I didn't know was holding in.

Just as I was about to run after Loki, something uncalled for happened.

Beneath my feet, I felt a faint crackling of earth. The cracking grew louder and louder by the passing second. I only realized too late that I should've moved from the place that I was standing.

Now it was too late.

The earth beneath my feet gave way into the molten lava below. My eyes widened in surprise as I felt myself falling. My breath hitched as my feet touched nothing but air. In the last, frenzied second, I flailed my arms around like mad trying to find something to hold onto.

I was in luck.

I felt my hand grab onto a small, frail looking tree branch. I held on for dear life as I screamed for help.

"Loki! Loki!" I shouted on the top of my lungs.

I waited a few seconds before screaming the same thing again.

"LOKI!"

I waited for what felt like forever. My arms were aching from holding onto the stray branch. It felt like my fingers would lose their grip any minute now. I couldn't hold on any longer.

Just as I almost ran out of hope, I heard footsteps approaching and soon, I saw the face of Loki glowering down on me. His eyebrows raised for a moment and I almost saw the ghost of a sneer appear on his face. For a terrifying moment, I thought he wasn't going to help me up and just leave me there hanging.

But then he raised his staff in his hand and banged it once to the floor.

I felt myself becoming weightless-almost like wind and I started to rise from the canyon. The strain on my fingers was gone as I didn't need to hold on to anything anymore. I rose up and soon, I was hovering over solid ground. I landed next to Loki with a thump and fell to the ground none too gently.

"thanks." I grumbled as I rubbed my bruised ass.

"No problem." He replied, not having noticed my obvious sarcasm.

As he stood next to me, he gave me a big once over. It was like he was observing me, studying me like I was his specimen. It was highly unnerving.

I cleared my throat awkwardly and looked away. It was then that I noticed what he was holding in his hand. It was the arrowhead flower.

"I see you go the flower." I stated.

"Yes…" he mused. "It seems like nothing of value, does it….Where do you suggest we place it?"

I thought for a moment and then got an idea. "How 'bout we bury it?"

"Bury it where?"

"In the desert," I suggested. "I have a feeling no one's going to want to go back there anytime soon."

Loki looked like he was mulling the idea over in his brain for a second. Finally he said, "Yes that does seem like a good idea. And I know the way as well."

He walked over to the edge of the island that we were on and easily jumped to the next. I stood exactly where I was, a bit apprehensive at jumping the thing again. When he realized that I wasn't following him, he turned around and beckoned me forward.

"Whatever you say…" I muttered, a little annoyed. I took off running and jumped to the next platform almost as easily as Loki. I realized too quickly that he was using his magic to help.

He started walking once more and I fell into step behind him. I long stopped questioning how he knew where everything was in this place. I had a feeling that it had something to do with his magic. I had noticed that everything these days did.

I decided to ignore that suspicion for now, and just continue to head toward the desert to bury our newfound treasure.

* * *

It didn't take us long to find the desert. Loki seemed to know the exact directions to get there.

As I parted the trees in front of us, I came face to face with a bright, blinding yellow and I saw the endless desert once more.

"We should bury it close to the forest so that we can get it later with ease." Loki ordered.

"Yes sir," I said with as much sarcasm as I could muster.

I took the strangely shaped flower from Loki and started to dig a hole in the sand below me. Once I dug deep enough, I placed the delicate looking flower into the sand.

"Wait," Loki intervened. He dug in his robes for a while and took out a handkerchief the size of my palm. "Wrap the thing in this."

I took it and wrapped the flower in the cloth. Then, I shovelled sand over the flower in the cloth until I couldn't see a trace of it anymore.

"How will we be able to find it if we need it?" I asked, curious.

Loki smirked evilly. "Oh we will. Don't you worry about that."

I pursed my lips together and stood up. I decided that it was against my better judgment than to ask about it anymore. I hated to admit it, but Loki was powerful. In a fight, I was sure he would win. Though I knew that if I had Kronos inside of me, I would be able to defeat him with my hands tied behind my back. But for now, I couldn't and I had to deal with that.

We started walking back into the forest.

It was almost sunset by now and Loki was leading once more.

Sooner rather than later, we found a clearing big enough for the two of us. We both drank a bit of water from the water bottles that we had collected and ate the food we had collected from the forest while we were looking for the flower. We didn't speak to each other at all for the longest time. Soon, Loki and I both drifted off to sleep.

As I went to sleep, I was met with a strange dream.

…..

_I was in Camp Half Blood…kind of. More like a darker, more depressing version of the camp. I admit, I did get a bit nostalgic then. I remembered the times Annabeth and I would play capture the flag and…no! I couldn't afford to let myself get caught up in these useless memories. I was in the present now. Not the past._

_I walked around until I saw one lonely cabin standing in the watery darkness. It was the Poseidan cabin. I furrowed my eyebrows. Why would I be seeing the Posiedan cabin in my dream?_

_I slowly walked over to it and realized that the door was closed. I tried to open it, but my hand flowed right through it. Almost like I was a ghost or something. _

_Damn._

_I held my hands up to the door and apprehensively took a step toward the seemingly solid door. I fell right through the door. I barely stopped myself from falling over. _

_As I steadied myself and looked around the cabin, I saw none other than Percy Jackson standing in the middle of the cabin. I froze and held my breath so that he wouldn't notice me there. He seemed to be looking at something in the corner of the cabin. I peered closer and saw that he was looking at a strange black box._

_Why would he be in my dream?_

_..._

_Or this isn't my dream._

_I was invisible, in the Poseidan cabin and Percy was standing right in front of me and seemingly not noticing me there. This had to be none other than the great hero of olympus's dream._

_I walked over to Percy and he didn't seem to notice my presence. I cautiously waved a hand in front of his face and he didn't even flinch. I smirked inwardly. He doesn't notice a thing. _

_Just as I saw Percy reaching out his hand to touch the box, the door to the cabin unexpectedly open. I flinched and backed away a few steps at the startling sound._

_I turned around and in the doorway, I saw none other than the great Poseidan standing in the doorway. Now I knew that this had to be Percy's dream that I was in. Poseidan would never visit me in my dream._

_I Stood and watched as the two spoke to each other. I heard the entire conversation._

_I found out that he was told to join the Avengers. I even found out what that black box is. It could give you what you needed the most at a specific time._

_I needed that box._

_Percy had both the box and the key. I didn't care that there woudl be a sacrifice if you were to open the box. I needed that box._

_As Poseidan had held out his hand to give Percy the key, I had tried to take it. Unfortunatly, my hand just floated right through both of their hands. Of course. I was invisible. _

_I watched as Percy placed both the box and the key in his pocket. I almost snarled in longing. That box could change the course of this war. It would make it so that I could win. And percy had it. _

_I watched as Poseidna left. Just before he turned around, I saw him look straight in my direction. For one long, horrifying second, I thought he had seen me. But he didn't. He then simply turned around and dissolved into rain._

_I relaxed my rigid body. That was a close call. That was when I felt myself dissolving into the air. I was waking up._

_Just before my dream ended, I laughed at how they weren't able to see me. _

…_._

I woke with a start. There was cold sweat on my brow and I noticed that it was still the middle of the night. That had to be the strangest thing that I have encountered in dream form to date.

I thought about what I had just seen. Percy had a box that would allow him to acquire something he might need at a time of need. He could use it at any time.

I wanted that box with every single cell in my body.

I heard what Poseidan said about the consequences, but honestly, I didn't give a damn.

I had to get that box.

When I meet Percy, and I know I will, I will fight him for it.

If we had that box, we could turn this war into our favour. We would get the power we so desperately needed.

I glanced over at Loki and saw that he was still asleep. I rolled over onto my back and looked up at the stars. I had nothing to do now, except for sleep.

So I shut my eyes and tried to get as much sleep as I could with the many things that were on my mind.

**Well there it is.**

**Please leave me a review if you have the time and tell me how I did.**

**And honestly guys, I really do appreciate them. My chapters are gifts to you all!**

**-Detective DG**


	22. Chapter 22

**Aright guys, chapter 22.**

**I just want to give a special thank you to a reviewer who's just amazing. HarryPotter1234, thank you for being a loyal reviewer!**

**Now here, we get to know what happens to Bruce and Annabeth after Percy left them during the night. It is the next day and they have waken up.**

**So here we go!**

Bruce

This was turning out to be a very strange week.

And what I didn't know was that it was about to get even stranger.

It was now early morning and the sun had barely risen. I had woken up just minutes ago and I immediately noticed that something was wrong.

Something was very wrong, and it involved Percy. When I looked around our camp site, I couldn't see him anywhere.

Honestly, I still didn't know what to think about both, Percy or Annabeth. I still couldn't believe that I had spilled one of my most darkest secrets to them. And I hadn't even told Tony the secret. I had just broken down and I couldn't even help myself.

I was a little mad at myself for doing that. I was supposed to be stronger than that. But for some reason, I didn't regret telling them.

Percy and Annabeth…I trusted them for some reason. I had a strong gut feeling that they were good people. And I knew that if all of the Half Bloods were like them, the Avengers could trust them. I knew that the right thing was to ally with the Half Bloods. If we fought as one big team, we could have a chance in defeating Loki and Luke.

It's like they say, strength in numbers.

And I also noticed that Percy and Annabeth weren't as afraid of the other guy as I thought they would be. After all, they had fully seen the other guy standing right in front of them and they hadn't run. The first reaction that many people would get if they were placed in a similar position would be to run, and they didn't do that for some reason.

So that's why, when I woke up this morning only to find that Percy was not with us, I was a little concerned.

I looked over at Annabeth just to make sure that at least she was there, and sure enough, she was.

I walked over to her and attempted to wake her up.

"Annabeth. Hey annabeth."

She shuffled around a bit before she finally opened her eyes. "Wha? Huh? Bruce, what's up?" She mumbled.

I waited for her to sit up before I said, "Percy's gone."

Her eyes grew more alert. "What?!"

I sighed. "He's not here anymore. I woke up just a few minutes ago and didn't see him anywhere."

Her body grew rigid. "Do you think he was kidnapped?"

I looked around at our camp site for any signs of a struggle. I didn't find any. "I don't think so. There are no signs of a fight."

Annabeth stood up. "But why would he leave us like that?" I noticed the slightly hurt expression on her face.

"I don't know. But it doesn't look like he had a choice." I looked over at the general area that Percy had slept in last night. On the ground lay the backpack that he was carrying. "He would've token the backpack with him."

"We have to find him." Annabeth steeled her face with determination.

I agreed. "Come on, let's grab our stuff and leave."

I bent down and grabbed the backpack that Percy had carried. Annabeth picked up her lethal looking glowing knife and we both left.

I still had no idea why that knife glowed. I hadn't asked either. And then there was the question of why Annabeth and Percy looked so surprised when I had told them I could see their weapons. They were fricken pointing it right in front of my face, of course I could see them. And what was so special about the weapons anyways?

What was so special about _them?_

They did tell me that they were the offsprings of gods, but for some reason, I had a hard time believing them. Those stories were just that-stories. They weren't real.

Were they?

Apparently Percy was the son of the great god Poseidan and Annabeth was the daughter of Athena, goddess of battle and wisdom. Did that mean they possessed powers as well?

But they were just teenagers! They didn't even look that dangerous.

But…Percy did tell me that he had powers over water at times. I had a hard time believing that as well, as they were natural born powers. They hadn't been given their powers. I didn't know anyone who was born with powers.

Excluding Thor of course because he is a god, none of the Avengers were born with their powers. We had all acquired them sometime in our life. In my case, I had acquired them against my will and they were more of a curse than any power I knew.

So naturally, I had a hard time believing they were born with their powers.

But, I did have an easier time believing that they were the offsprings of gods. I was giving into them. I stopped being suspicious of them as much as I was when I first met them. I knew that I could trust them for some reason. After all, if they had wanted to kill me, they would've at least tried by now even though they would never succeed in it.

So I decided to trust them. And my goal was to unite them with us, the Avengers. Without me knowing the Half Bloods before hand, the Avengers would never be able to trust them. I would convince them to trust the Half Bloods.

And in the meanwhile, I would find answers. Like if the Half Bloods really did have powers. And why they had looked so surprised when I told them that I could see their weapons.

Annabeth and I started walking through the forest once again.

The strange, constant beeping of my watch was acting as white noise. I learned to drown it out from hearing it so much. I still wondered why it was doing that. Was there something wrong with it?

After some poking and prodding to it the previous day, I had come to the conclusion that it had nothing to do with the mechanics of the watch.

Other than that, I had also noticed that this watch was definitely not the same that Betty had given to me. It did look uncannily similar, but it definitely wasn't the same. I remembered the _feel_ of Betty's watch. How the grooves and ridges felt when I stroked my finger along its surface.

This one just felt…_wrong_. If felt different.

Annabeth's voice broke the silence.

"What is that?"

"what is what?"

"That beeping from your watch." She asked.

I sighed and held it up for her to see. "It monitors my heartbeat. If it goes past 200 beats per second, I transform. This watch tells me by beeping faster if it is in that danger zone."

Annabeth cocked her head to the side. "…But then why is it beeping now?"

I looked at her in the eyes and said, "I have no idea."

Thankfully, she didn't question me further. Though, I thought I had a pretty good idea what she was thinking.

As we walked through the forest, we found a small path that was cleared by someone…or something. It was small, but had plenty of sword slashed through trail so we decided to follow it for better or for worse.

We had followed it for an hour before something happened.

And it was definitely _not_ good.

"Bruce, look at that." Annabeth said when we were passing by a small clearing. She walked over to a spot on the clearing where something shiny lay. I bit my lip before following her to see what it was.

"What do you think it is?" She asked as she stopped to look at it close up.

I raised an eyebrow apprehensively. "I don't know but I think we should leave it alone."

For some reason, I had a really strong feeling that this was a trap.

Annabeth didn't seem to hear me as she reached out to touch the object.

My eyes widened. She really shouldn't be touching that!

"No Annabeth, don't!"

But it was too late. The damage was done. Annabeth had picked it up and was holding it when it started glowing.

"Ah!" She exclaimed as she let go of the thing and it dropped to the floor. She backed away and I backed away with her.

The thing was on the floor and it was actually glowing and slowly getting bigger. It let off a strange whirring noise as it grew until it was bigger than the both of us.

My watch started to beep faster.

The thing almost reminded me of one of Tony's robots. Except that this was much more dangerous looking.

The thing soon took on a shape. It grew robotic-like claws and looked a lot like a tank. It had huge tank wheels and something that looked like a tank's body as well. There was a huge missile launcher at the top of it, sitting menacingly, just biding its time. It was not at least three times our size and had thankfully stopped growing.

That didn't make it look any less lethal. It had multiple missile launchers coming out of the sides of its body. It looked like a robot had crossed over with an army tank. It even had robotic arms so that it could grab onto anything. It had a dome for a head and a single bar that went from each side of the dome. There was one glowing circle in the middle of the bar that kept zooming from side to side. One could only suggest that was its eyes.

The thing brought back some bad memories. The times Ross would come after me with his army of tanks in some third world country…

I pushed the thoughts to the back of my brain so that I could focus on the problem at hand.

I would only think later that during its transformation would have been a good time to run. Instead Annabeth and I had stared at it like two idiots.

The tanks "eye" stopped moving and fixed on the two of us. There was low whine as the missile launcher at the top of the tank started glowing.

"Scatter!" I heard Annabeth yell.

I dove to the side as quick as I could and landed on the grass hard. As I landed, I saw a laser shoot at where Annabeth and I had been just a second ago. I heard my watch beat frantically out of control and I tried to lower it.

"Annabeth?" I shouted to find out where she was.

The tank turned toward me as I shouted, no doubt following the sound of my voice.

_Bad idea Banner._

It let out a volley of attacks at me and I scrambled up and ran in the opposite direction. I quickly took cover behind a tree and I suddenly felt fire lick at my sides.

_So this tank could spew fire as well now? Just my luck._

I tentatively got out from the cover of the tree just in time to see Annabeth scramble up from the ground on the opposite side of the tank.

She ran over to me as fast as she could without the tank noticing. As she rounded on me, I grabbed her shoulders so that she wouldn't fall to the ground.

"Look, you have to transform Bruce."

I tried to interrupt, but she held a hand up to my face.

"You're the only one who can fight this thing. Do you really think this," she held up her knife. "Will kill _that?"_ she pointed at the tank.

I scrunched my eyes and sighed when I came to terms with the fact that she was actually correct. I was our only hope. I put my hands on her shoulders and held them firmly.

"Look, if anything, _anything _ at all happens, you run. Do you understand me? You run the hell away from me."

Annabeth nodded slowly. "Wait, I have an idea." she took the backpack I was holding and rummaged around for a bit before she took out a sleek machine gun. "This will distract the tank for a while."

I smirked despite the situation, but it quickly fell off my face.

I could still feel the fear in her eyes. I looked at the floor and then looked back up into her eyes.

"Hey. Do you trust me?"

She paused and I could almost hear the gears in her brain turning. After what felt like an eternity, she said, "Yes."

I let out a small breath of relief.

"Good."

I walked a few ways away from Annabeth and let out all of my anger and fear and frustration. All of my pent up emotions rolled out of me in waves, crashing onto a devastated beach's shore and I felt the transformation begin.

I felt muscles and bones pop as I doubled in size. I roared in pain toward the sky as the transformation finally completed after an agonizing few seconds.

Then I knew no more.

* * *

**Hulk**

_Something is wrong_

The hulk was not in control.

At least, not in full control.

He _was_ doing all of the smashing, yes, but he could _feel_ Banner in his head. He wasn't gone. Not fully gone.

_This is not right._

He roared at the unpleasant feeling. After all, that is what he did best.

In front of him, he saw a strange thing that was about the same size as the Hulk. He scoffed. This thing was nothing. Hulk had taken on things twice this size before.

But the Hulk soon realized that this wasn't all that puny. He didn't think that when pointy things started shooting from the puny thing.

The Hulk tried to turn his attention back to the thing in front of him, but for some reason it didn't feel…right.

Someone was inside of his head and he wasn't asleep.

* * *

**Bruce**

_Okay, something is definitely not right._

He was in his head, but then again, he wasn't. This wasn't him, but it was.

He could see everything that was happening, and he had a consciousness. He could feel and think. This _didn't_ happen when he was the Hulk.

And that was what was wrong.

He was the Hulk and at the same time, he was himself.

It was like they were two people. The hulk had taken full control of Bruce's body and he was totally fine with that. He still knew what he was doing, or rather, what the Hulk was doing. And at the moment, the Hulk was smashing at the tank in front of him with whatever he could get his hands on.

At that moment, Bruce got an idea.

He gave a command to the Hulk.

He told him to break off the missile launcher attached to the tank.

Something came over his (or was it the Hulks? This was all very confusing) body. It became rigid and something washed over the Hulk because he actually _listened. _

Now it was getting weird if it hadn't been before. Bruce was not used to this _at all_.

Was this what had happened at the cornucopia? No…he had been himself when that had happened.

For a second. Bruce felt like he was losing control of the Hulk all over again. He strengthened his mind and regained partial control once again. This was crazy.

How the hell was he doing this?

Was this even possible?

_Ah, I have to focus on the problem at hand_.

He directed his thoughts to the Hulk once again and told him to break off all the weapon launching contraptions there were on the tank.

Again, that same rigid feeling took over the Hulk's body and he actually listened. Bruce watched as the Hulk tore at the tank and roared at the sky above. He managed to successfully break off all the missile launchers.

Bruce thought he was going crazy. This actually worked.

Overwhelming glee took over his thoughts. It was like he was the Hulk and he was Bruce at the same time. Still…the Hulk did have a bit more control than Bruce was comfortable with that, but Bruce could live with that. After all, it was better than nothing.

The Hulk did still call the shots, but at least Bruce was conscious enough to know what he…the Hulk was doing.

* * *

**Hulk**

He could _feel_ Banner in his head. He could feel him trying to give orders.

And the Hulk had no choice except to follow them, for the Hulk could not control himself.

And this was a new feeling to the Hulk.

Most of the time, he was in control when he was let out of his makeshift cage in Banner's mind. But this time he was not.

And he hated the feeling.

Though when Banner was not giving any orders, the Hulk was in control. He could do whatever he wanted. But not when Banner spoke.

Like when he heard Banner's puny voice in his head telling him to attack the pointy things that came out of the tank in front of him. He had no choice but to do just that.

And yes, he did know what the thing in front of him was. Stupid Ross would always come after the Hulk with those things, trying to hurt Banner, the Hulk.

He would always stop Ross.

The Hulk raised his arms and brought them down with huge force onto the tank. He started to rip out the pointy things stuck on the sides of the tank. He growled at it when they started to whine. He brought his arms down once again and then the tank didn't give any more noises.

He bared his teeth in a toothy grin as the tank fell apart into pieces in front of him.

* * *

**Bruce**

Bruce watched as the Hulk smashed the tank into pieces.. He could see Annabeth crouched behind a tree far in the corner.

He tried to divert the Hulks attention away from her and surprisingly enough, it worked. Bruce was _definitely _not used to this.

Not at all.

The tank gave out another small whine as it shorted and sparks flew out of it. pieces of electronic debris fell to the floor as Bruce continued to watch from the Hulk's point of view.

Somehow, he could feel the Hulk's emotions inside of him as well. The only emotions he felt from that side were rage, satisfaction at destroying the robot, and pride. Like he was happy with himself for destroying the thing.

Bruce tried one last experiment.

_Hulk let me out._

He put all of his mind power into that one sentence. Bruce could feel the Hulk's mind resisting. He could hear the Hulk let out a roar into the sky as Bruce started to win the battle of the minds. He always did have more brain power than the Hulk did.

_Let me out._

He put suggestion and power into his mind voice. Bruce could feel the Hulk's annoyance at him and how the Hulk wanted him gone, asleep. The Hulk should've been able to feel Bruce's emotions as well, if he weren't so primitive.

_Let me out._

This time it worked. The Hulk's mind power collapsed in on itself and Bruce could feel the beginning of a transformation back to himself began. This had to be the first time that he actually felt the transformation back to normal. He usually only felt the transformation from himself to the Hulk.

It felt strange.

It was almost like his muscles were collapsing in against each other. They grinded and squeezed as his bones began to shrink.

That was when he realized that the Hulk actually used to feel pain when this transformation used to take place. Though he got so used to it that he could barely feel it anymore. He just buries the pain deep inside.

Just like Bruce did.

Bruce shoved that thought deep into his own brain when the transformation completed. As he stood in the middle of the wreckage, swaying from side to side, he saw Annabeth approach.

Just as he was about to fall forward, he felt hands catch him to prevent him from having a face plant with the ground.

Then he sunk into darkness once again.

* * *

I woke up to Annabeth hovering over me. I slowly lifted myself into a sitting position from the ground using my arms. I blinked my eyes owlishly to clear my vision and quickly noticed Annabeth looking at me with a worried expression on her face. She still wasn't used to my transformation it seemed.

I doubted she would ever get used to it.

I never did.

There was a pounding in my head like there was after every transformation. It would only go away after an hour.

Annabeth held out a hand for me to pull myself up with and I slowly accepted it. I was pulled off the ground and Annabeth put her hands on my shoulders to prevent me from falling again.

"You okay?" she asked breathlessly.

I scrunched my eyebrows together until I finally said, "…yeah…"

I wasn't sure if I was ready to tell her about the strange transformation yet or not. Hell, I wasnt even sure if I wanted to tell Tony yet. First, I had to find out how and why that had happened. I had just transformed into the Hulk and I was conscious throughout it.

I confirmed a long time ago that I never knew what happened to anything when I turned into the Hulk. But this time it did. Was it something I ate? Something I touched? Was it this place in general? I was completely clueless and I had nowhere to start.

I started to fumble with my hands subconsciously. I had to find out why this happened. I had to find out or I would go crazy.

I hadn't realized that Annabeth had been watching me the entire time I was having my internal argument. I focused my eyes on her and saw that she had a questioning expression on her face. Then she took a half step back. It was so subtle that you wouldn't have noticed it unless you were looking for it. And I was definitely looking for it.

I knew what it meant. She was scared. One thing about having the Hulk share space in my head was that I could sense fear. I could even see it. I trained my eyes to watch for it.

It gave me assurance for some reason. That way I knew that if the person was scared, they would not get attached to me. That way when the time came, I could leave them with no big hassle.

It was a strange feeling, sensing someone's fear. It was like a gut feeling and I was sensing it off of Annabeth now.

I tried my best to ignore the feeling as I picked up the backpack that Annabeth had tossed onto the ground. I was just a bit surprised that it hadn't been destroyed during the battle.

"We should leave. We made too much noise." Annabeth said bluntly.

I nodded in agreement. I saw her subtly brush her hand against her thigh. I had a strong feeling that her knife was there. She probably put it there so that she could have it close to hand if something were to happen. Specifically me turning into the hulk again.

I sighed and we started walking again.

We walked through trees and bushes, all the while resuming our search to look for Percy.

In the back of my mind was the ever-present worry of what had happened to the other Avengers. Were they okay? Did anything else other than the Hulk creature that I had fought attacked them. I had to find them as quickly as I could. I…needed the familiar faces for comfort.

It was funny that I thought that at that exact moment.

"Hey, did you hear that?" Annabeth asked out of the blue. I took a moment to listen. I slowly started to hear muffled voices and the snapping of tree branches.

My eyes widened. "Yeah, I do" I followed the sounds. They were coming from somewhere opposite to us. There must have been another trail right next to ours. I stepped off the trail we were on and parted the thick trees that were in the way. Annabeth followed along behind me.

It took us about five minutes to get to the other trail. I got ready to face the worst, but I was met with something much of the opposite.

I smiled softly as I saw who approached

**Well, there you have it. **

**Long chapter! A present to all y'all. Please leave a review to tell me how I did! I really appreaciate it.**

**-Detective DG**


	23. Chapter 23

**So this is chapter 23.**

**Remember guys, I would really love some support in this story, so if you could take the time out of your lives to give me a small review about how I'm doing, I'll be really thankful!**

**Now, on to business. This chapter is what happened after the rest of the avengers (minus Bruce) fought the remaining Hulk creatures. They had gone to sleep and now it is morning!**

**Have fun!**

* * *

Tony

* * *

My chest hurt. A lot. Sometimes during the last night, I had drifted off to a fitful sleep. A sharp pain in my chest woke me up the next morning.

The sky above me looked like it was becoming brighter by the second. The others weren't awake yet, so I sat on the ground, trying not to move because if I did, a sharp pain would travel through my body almost making me black out.

I rubbed a hand across my chest. I was sure I had at least one fractured rib. There was a continuous pound through my head as well like someone was jumping up and down inside of it.

All in all, I felt horrible.

I tried sitting up but immediately found out that I couldn't. Every time I tried, I felt pain shoo up my body and seem to burn my arc reactor.

So I lay where I was, on the uncomfortable ground, drowning in my thoughts.

I thought about Bruce and why he had done what he did. Why did he run away? Did he think that the Hulk was going to murder us? He probably did. He was floating in his own self hate and suicidal thoughts. And he wouldn't let anyone help him. It was killing him from the inside and he knew it. I could see it in his eyes.

Whenever he smiled, it never _ever_ reached his eyes. Everyday he would act nice and polite and _happy_ but he was never truly at peace.

I looked up at the sky again and saw the sun peak in from the horizon through the gap in the trees. The sky was an odd red, orange colour. It was oddly calming. I never was one to stare at sunrises, of all things. I thought that it was an incredibly stupid thing to do and a total waste of time. I always had more important things to do.

Running Stark Industries for example.

But I could spare time today.

I watched as the sun became barely visible in the far east. It wasn't long before the others started to stir from their sleep.

I tried to push myself up with my hands and actually managed to about halfway until black spots started filling my vision and I had to lower myself back to the ground.

I hated this. I hated showing vulnerability. It made me feel weak, like I wasn't capable of doing anything myself and that I was a stupid lowlife. I hated those feelings.

I saw Rogers stir from his sleep across from me. I grimaced. I especially hated being vulnerable in front of Mr. "I'm so perfect" Rogers. He reminded me of everything that I hadn't been to my father. He was always the perfect son. My dad cared about only him. Never me. He _never_ cared about me.

"_Oh, You're graduating from MIT? Amazing! I'm going to have to miss your graduation ceremony because I have to go find Captain America!"_

He never did come in the end. No matter how much I begged and pleaded. He never came.

I pushed the thought to the back of my head as I saw the Cap's eyes open. He pushed himself into a sitting position and turned to face me once he realized that I was awake.

"Tony?" he croaked.

"Hello Captain." I said cooly.

He frowned at me. I let out a breath of air from my nose. As if I needed his approval. He was studying me, looking at my face like he was trying to read my mind.

"Why do you do this to me?" he asked finally.

"Do what?" I grunted.

"Always pick fights with me, give me the cold shoulder…you know very well what I'm talking about!"

I scrunched my eyebrows. "I don't know what you're talking about."

Rogers let out an exasperated sigh. "Why do you hate me so much?"

Damn the perfect soldier for being so perspective.

"You _were_ always dear old dad's favourite." I muttered quietly so he wouldn't be able to hear.

"What do you mean 'dad's favourite'?"

Damn the perfect soldier and his enhanced hearing. Why does he have to be so perfect? What's so good about him? What did I not do right?

Why did my father hate me so much?

I felt sadness and hate well up inside of me like an overflowing river against a dam that was just about to burst.

"Tony what's wrong? Let me help!"

I scrunched my eyes shut. He could do nothing to help. I pushed myself up into a sitting position using my anger to power me. I sat up and propped myself against a tree next to me. It worked and my chest didn't hurt as much as it would've. But I could still feel the pounding in my head.

"You can't help me."

"What?"

"I said you can't help me!" I hissed. "you were always the perfect one. My dad always only cared about you!"

Rogers looked confused. "Wha-? But I was in the ice!"

"Yeah and guess where he was when I was graduating? Looking for you of course. And all the time he wasn't looking for you, he would drink"

The Captain's eyes widened. "Tony, I-I didn't know."

"Yeah you didn't know! You didn't know jack shit! You ruined my damn life and you didn't even know."

A pained look crossed Rogers face. "How could I have known, Tony? I was barely alive!"

The innocent look on his face just fuelled my rage. How could he just sit there and act like he hadn't ruined my life? My dad was never, _ever_ proud of me and it was all his fault. Something like that could do a toll to a kid.

"My dad was never proud of me because of you."

I hesitated a moment before finally saying what has been on my mind for my entire life. The old me before all of this happened would never have even thought of saying this straight to Captain America's face, but something about this place changed me.

"You were my hero when I was a kid. My dad would tell me war stories about you. I used to think they were awesome. That all changed when I got older and I was slammed in the face with reality."

I looked at Rogers with fury and hurt glimmering in my eyes. My facial expression stayed indifferent. I didn't want to give _everything _of myself away. He looked back at me with a mixture of sorrow and pity. I didn't need any of his damn pity. I just told him the facts. I didn't want the whole damn sorrow train.

"Tony, I'm sorry. I didn't know-" he started, but I cut him off.

"Look, I don't need you're pity party Rogers. I just told you some things about me, and that's it. Nothing more. So keep the crap to yourself."

"But-"

This time, it wasn't me who shut him up, but Clint.

"Shut the hell up!" He muttered at us. "Some of us are trying to sleep, ya know!"

And then our "conversation" came to an end. I stopped talking and Rogers followed my lead. I was really thankful. I was not in the mood to talk to him about my feelings.

A few minutes later, Clint got up off the floor and walked over to one of our backpacks to get a sip of water.

"Thanks for waking me up." He sneered at Rogers as I ignored him.

After Clint woke up, the others followed suit. One by one, they all awoke and not soon after, we were all awake. We decided that we had to keep moving. We couldn't stay in one place for too long. Clint had to help me up since I couldn't get up by myself.

He draped an arm around my arm and another around my back. That way he helped me walk. I hated being the one slowing the team down. My armour was being carried by Thor.

"You are never to speak of this again!" I mumbled menacingly.

"Whatever you say Stark. Whatever you say." He muttered back.

Then we started to walk away from our camp site.

This time, since I couldn't just blast away the trees in front of us, Fury and Natasha had to hack away the branches from the front.

And that was how we walked, slowly but surely.

But not so surely for me. Every step of mine hurt. My head was throbbing even more profoundly and it made the pain in my chest seem almost double. It was actually getting harder to see clearly. I was seeing double of everything.

Finally, I knew I couldn't keep going.

"Guys, can we stop for a few seconds?" I asked, with a barely muffled groan. Clint helped lower me to the ground where I placed my head in my hands.

A few seconds later, I heard Natasha say, "Stark, you don't look so good."

I lifted my head slightly. "And I always try to look the best for you, Romanoff."

"If only Banner were here. He would know what to do." Clint mumbled.

"But he decided to fucking drop out." Fury stated.

That made a new wave of sadness roll over me. I _hated_ feeling like this. I couldn't feel like this.

So I looked up at Clint, let out a breath and said, "Come one Clint. Help me up."

"But-"

I gritted my teeth. "Do it."

He raised an eyebrow then said, "Whatever you say."

He placed an arm around my back and helped get me up. I scrunched my eyes shut as another dose of pain shot through me. I steeled myself against it and forced myself not to cry out. When I was finally up, we started walking once again. The others slowed down a bit just so that I could keep up with them. Again that horrible feeling rolled over me.

Clint supported most of my weight so that I wouldn't fall face first into the ground. We were at the very back of the small group. As we were walking, we collected some berries that didn't look poisonous but what Natasha pointed out. We snacked on those berries a while ago and I knew that we had to find real food soon or we would starve to death.

It got boring really fast after that. I ran out of snarky comments to bring up the groups mood and that was it. We walked in silence.

It wasn't soon, though, until we arrived at something…different.

"What is that my friends?" Thor asked from where he was, at the front of the group. He strayed away from the trail and walked over to a tree. He knelt down and picked up something from the ground.

We all crowded around him to find that he was holding two tiny glass vials. They were glass bottles about the size of my palm, filled with a murky green liquid. Both looked exactly the same as the other.

I hobbled up to Thor with Clint's help. The vials seemed to glint in the sunlight. I scrunched my eyes at the liquid. They didn't look like any liquid I have ever seen before. It looked…strange. In fact, I couldn't recognize it at all.

"What the hell?" I said. "I have no idea what this is."

"Well that's a first." I heard Natasha mutter. I ignored her and instead snatched away both the bottles from Thor and started to rotate them over and over in the palm of my hand. I shook, prodded, poked it and even tried to open them. But of course, I did know better as much as people tended to think the opposite. I didn't know if it could be poisonous or not.

"Well?" Fury prompted.

"It…I don't know what this is." I said, finally defeated.

Just as I said that, I heard a steady beeping coming from somewhere out in front of us.

_Beep. Beep. Beep._

It sounded oddly like Bruce's watch. I couldn't help but widen my eyes a little at the hope of it being him. It all deflated though when I couldn't spot any sign of him. Instead, I saw a small, tray parachute floating toward us. Attached to the parachute was a small grey ball. We all watched as it gently floated and settled down on the ground next to Rogers.

He knelt and picked up the strange thing. There was a soft click and hiss as the grey ball opened up. Rogers peered inside and took out a wall piece of very old paper. He carefully unfolded it and read it out loud.

"_What you see here are two vials. One of them has a poison that will paralyze you for at least a day. The other has the power to teleport you where you are needed the most and heal anyone who is hurt. If you would like to gain from this, two people from your group must drink one of the vials.__"_

There was a silence as Rogers stopped reading. I broke it.

"Well that was enlightening."

Fury glared at me as he grabbed the piece of paper from Rogers. He read it over again and finally said, "I think I should drink one."

"But-" Natasha started to protest.

"No buts. I'm the person who made this all happen. I should drink one."

No one dared argue with him. But I was actually surprised. I never saw Fury as the "sacrifice himself for the greater good" type.

But then again, I never thought that about myself either.

I could be wrong twice.

"I'll drink one too." I stated finally, determination laced through my voice.

"But Stark, you can barely walk!" Rogers exclaimed.

I sighed, exasperated. The damn soldier didn't think that I wouldn't sacrifice myself for the others? Well he was wrong.

"And that's exactly why I should be doing this. I'm just dragging you guys down." I had to think fast for an excuse for wanting to do this. I didn't want them to know that the cap was getting to me.

I needed to prove to the team that I was something more than just a self-centred bastard. After all, it was all just a façade that I had built for so many years. My experiences had forced me to become like this. And I could do nothing about it.

But despite all that, I had sacrificed myself to save New York and everyone I cared about. I could do it again in a split second if I needed to though.

Anyways…it's not like I would die right? The worst that could happen is I end up paralyzed. I could deal with that.

Right?

The others were looking at me with a mixture of uncertainty and surprise. Of course they're surprised. They didn't know that what I did everyday was just a façade.

_Bruce wouldn't be surprised._

I quickly grabbed one of the vials from fury. He kept the other.

"But friend Stark, think this through-!" Thor exclaimed.

I raised a hand to silence him and looked away from the others. This had to happen. It was the only way.

In the background, I could still feel my head pounding away. Same as the sharp shooting pain in my chest. But the others couldn't stop me. I had to prove Rogers wrong.

Fury looked just as determined as I felt. He uncorked the small glass bottle and held it out in front of him. I did the same. I sniffed it and recoiled. It smelled like shit. I wrinkled my noise at the horrible smell and held it a little farther away from myself.

It seemed that either Fury had a nose of steel or didn't give a donkey's ass about the small, as he had a look of indifference on his face.

The others crowded around us as we got ready to drink the liquid.

Fury nodded at me as he held it a little closer to his mouth. I nodded back at him and finally lifted my vial to my mouth.

_Here goes nothing._

I tipped the glass into my mouth and the foul liquid went in. Fury did the same.

I felt the liquid slither down my throat. I recoiled once again at the taste. It tasted as bad as it smelled. Probably worse.

I swallowed crazily as I tried to stop myself from vomiting it back out.

"Ah!" I exclaimed as I almost fell over. Someone steadied me as my vision swam. I couldn't see Fury in front of me. Hell, I couldn't see anything. Sharp bouts of pain shot through my head worse than before.

I clutched at my head with my hands, trying to make the pain become less intense. Of course, it didn't work.

Then…just as soon as it started, it stopped. All the feeling in me disappeared. It was like I was numb, floating on a cloud, not feeling anything. That was when my vision started to clear. In front of me, Fury came into focus, looking horrible and swaying on his feet.

And that was when it happened.

I don't know what exactly happened, but all I felt was a horrible lurching in my stomach as I was jerked forward violently. Everything around me span and all I could see was a blur of colours and shapes. Seconds later, I landed on something…hard. My knees buckled and I fell to the hard ground.

That was when I passed out.

* * *

I woke up to a bright light. I squinted my eyes, trying to adjust to the bright light. All in all, I felt horrible. Everything ached.

Slowly, I sat up and every muscle protested. I let out a breath as the worst was over. I looked around and saw Thor, Clint, Natasha and Steve. But that was it. I didn't see Fury anywhere.

A rush of memories came to hit me as I remembered what happened. The vials that we drank from…did that mean that I took the right bottle?

_Oh no._

I did take the right one. But that meant that Fury was paralyzed somewhere in the forest and we had absolutely no idea where he was.

That was when I realized that I couldn't feel a pain in my chest anymore. Sure, my body ached, but that was it. It _ached. _In fact, I couldn't even feel the pounding in my head any more.

But then there was the question of what the hell happened.

I looked over at the other Avengers and saw that they were awake as well.

"What's going on?" I heard Natasha say in a croaky voice.

"Don't know." Clint muttered.

And that was when I noticed that we weren't where we had been before I passed out. We were someplace totally different. There was no trail here and we were surrounded by trees on all sides. It was almost like we were in a clearing. A really big one.

I slowly got to my feet and leaned on a tree. I rubbed a hand along my chest. I felt the warm and oddly cool metal of my arc reactor. I couldn't feel any pain or anything, just the reassuring comfort of my arc.

"Wait, where's Fury?" Steve finally asked what were all thinking about.

"The potion! Does that mean that warrior Fury took the wrong one?" Thor exclaimed.

They all turned their heads in unison toward me. I raised my hands in surrender.

"Look, I don't know what happened. So don't look at me like that." I was talking mostly to Rogers.

As I studied his expression, I noticed a slight change. His face, looking accusing a second before, had turned soft. His frown lines softened and he seemed almost guilty of looking at me. He turned his head away from me a fraction of a second as I frowned. What was that all about?

"Wait, so if we're here…that means that you drank the right potion." Clint said slowly, looking at me.

"No shit Sherlock." I replied.

"But then how did we get here?"

I sighed at how clueless they all looked. "The paper. It said that the person who drank the correct potion would be transported somewhere along with the rest of the team. I drank the right one and now, here we are."

Then I caught sight of my suit, along with the other Avengers' weapons there as well. Even Thor's hammer was there. Apparently they'd been transported along with us. I walked over to my suitcase and hefted the heavy thing.

"Well if we don't know where Fury is, we should start looking. But for now, I think he can handle himself." The next part I muttered under my breath. "He is Nick Motherfucking Fury."

Thor beamed and clapped me on the back as he picked up his hammer. "Let us find Fury!"

Thor's good mood was oddly contagious. I found myself smiling at his enthusiasm despite the situation.

And that was when we set off once again, this time with a purpose. We had to find Fury before something bad happened to him.

Honestly, it was kind of funny. Not to be heartless or anything, but Fury was one son of a bitch. But one with a lot of badassery. And he was never helpless. I just couldn't wrap my mind around the though of him being paralyzed, on the ground.

In fact, he had a badass vibe as much as I had an egotistical vibe. And that was saying something.

The thought quickly left me as we came across another trail that looked quite fresh. I bent low and saw the faith outlines of two pairs of footsteps.

"Hey guys." I pointed down at the footprints.

I saw Natasha kneel to get a better look at the prints. "They look fresh."

She scattered the dirt from around the footsteps. She took a pinch of the dirt and held it up to her eyes to examine it. Then she sniffed it.

"What the hell are you doing?" I asked, bewildered.

"It smells familiar…"

"Dirt has a smell?" Rogers asked, looking confused.

I looked back down at the footsteps and suddenly realized that there was something familiar about them. Why did they look so familiar? That was when it hit me.

Could it be…?

No…there could be so many people in this forest. It could be anyone.

It couldn't be Bruce…right?

So I just dismissed the thought as we started walking again.

* * *

It was an hour before we finally came across something interesting. We were just walking along when we heard a shuffling through the trees in the distance. It sounded too much like walking.

I turned to the others and they nodded softly. Thor and Rogers slipped out in front and hoisted their weapons. We inched forward and heard more rustling coming from the bushes.

"Get ready." Whispered Natasha.

That was when whoever was rustling around in the bushes showed themselves and walked out into the vulnerable path.

My eyes widened as I saw who it was.

**Well there you go guys.**

**I know, I know horrible cliffy, but you probably know who it is already.**

**So, if anyone, ANYONE is still out there, please leave me a review! I'll be really grateful! It helps keep me going.**

**Next chapter is Tony again.**

**-Detective DG**


	24. Chapter 24

**OMG, i am so sorry this took so long. Something happened and all of my work disappeared on my mac! :(**

**BUT, it is here now! **

**So this follows the events that happened in the last chapter. There is no jumping around this time.**

**And I looove all of your reviews! Please, I really need feedback and I appreciate all of the reviews that I receive!**

**Enjoy!**

* * *

Tony

* * *

"Bruce?" I asked at one of the two people who were standing on the beaten path in front of us.

"Tony?" I heard him call back, sounding equally surprised. His eyes widened as he started walking toward me.

There was a girl beside him. A teenager. She looked about 16, give or take a few years. She had blond, frighteningly gray eyes and overall, looked like a California girl.

She was trailing behind Bruce, looking a bit out-of-place. Who was she? I vaguely remembered seeing her at the cornucopia, but I couldn't know for sure.

In the meanwhile, Bruce had come up to me and put a hand on my shoulder in greeting.

I frowned. I still hadn't fully gotten over the fact that he had abandoned us during our fight with the Hulk creatures. It shouldn't have been that surprising to me, but it was still hurtful. Bruce raised an eyebrow at my obviously pained expression and I quickly tried to make my face blank of emotion once again. It worked, as Bruce didn't say anything more. He only lowered his arm a little self-consciously and took a step back.

I interrupted the awkward silence by jabbing a thumb in the girl's direction. "Who's she?"

I saw her wrinkle her eyebrow in annoyance. Before she could say anything though, Bruce interrupted her. "Annabeth, meet the avengers. Avengers, meet Annabeth. She's one of the half bloods.

Before any body else could say anything, I interrupted. "Okay. Time out, what the hell is a half blood?"

Annabeth glared daggers at me before saying, "Half human, half Greek god. I'm the daughter of Athena, goddess of war and wisdom."

I scoffed. "So, what, you some kind of warrior?"

"Yes. Yes I am."

Just as I was about to pry more about her history, Rogers rudely stepped in front of me.

"I'm Steve Rogers, also known as Captain America." He held out a hand for her to shake and after surveying him for a couple of seconds, she took his hand and firmly shaked it. "Hello."

"I'm Clint, Hawkeye, Barton. This," He pointed over at Natasha. "Is Natasha Romanoff also known as Black Widow."

Clint smiled but didn't shake her hand. Natasha just nodded, as cold as ever.

"So who are you?" She asked me finally.

"Why, I am the wonderful Tony Stark or the awesome and well-known Iron man!" I exclaimed while hoisting up the suitcase for her to see.

She raised an eyebrow for a fraction of a second. I smirked.

"Well that explains a lot."

I cocked my head to the side, but didn't say anything.

"So…how'd you find us?" Bruce asked a couple of seconds later.

"Well, that's kind of a long story…"

He raised an eyebrow and said curtly, "Then make it short."

I wagged a finger at him. "Getting pissy now, aren't we?"

"Oh you'll know when I really am."

"Touche."

Bruce looked around at the five of us. A frown slowly crept up his face. "And while you're at it, why don't you tell me where Fury is?"

Rogers stepped in front of me once again. Now that was starting to get annoying.

"When we were going through the forest we found these two vials filled with a green liquid. This parachute thing fell next to us and told two people from our group to drink one of the vials. One would transport that person and the rest of us to where we were needed the most. The other would paralyze that person for a day."

Bruce sighed and pinched his nose. "And let me guess, one of you drank the right one and Fury didn't."

"Exactly."

"So who drank the right one?"

The others turned their heads in unison toward me. Clint made it even more obvious by jabbing his thumb in my direction. I gave them all dirty looks.

Bruce's eyes widened. "But Tony-"

I cut him off by raising a hand in front of his face. "Don't say anything else. It was my decision and I was willing to take the risks."

Bruce opened and closed his mouth like he was going to say something but then thought better of it. He settled on a frown.

The entire time we had talked, Annabeth was lurking in the background looking out-of-place. She looked like she wanted to bring something up but settled on not saying anything.

It took her a while to finally speak up but she did. "So…what do you guys do?"

I frowned at her. "What do we do?"

"Yeah."

"we've saved the world from an alien invasion," I said like I was discussing the weather.

Bruce stepped in. "Thor's brother over there tried to take over the world by using an alien army. We stopped him before it could get bad."

Annabeth nodded slowly.

"What about you?" Rogers asked.

Annabeth paused a little before she explained. "My boyfriend, Percy Jackson son of Poseidon led an army to save the world from the evil Titan lord Kronos. A…friend of mine had been possessed by Kronos and Percy had to…kill him in the end."

I saw a flicker of sadness appear in Annabeth's eyes but that disappeared quickly.

Bruce intervened once more. "And now we're looking for Percy."

"Wait, you don't know where he is?" Clint questioned.

"No. He was with us last night, but when we woke up today, he was gone." Annabeth replied.

Again her eyes turned sad. Bruce noticed and placed a hand on her shoulder. I narrowed my eyes at them. For knowing each other for such a short time, they seemed pretty buddy buddy.

"He had a dream. Percy. A voice told him that the half bloods had to join the Avengers." Annabeth continued.

My eyes widened.

I had the same dream.

I saw Bruce glance at me from the corner of his eye. I scrunched my eyebrows and decided to tell the others.

"I…had a dream like that too. But a voice didn't tell me. A creepy ass mummy did."

Annabeth turned toward me sharply. "A mummy?" she asked curtly.

"Uh yeah…?"

She shook her head slowly in disbelief. "But she's not a mummy anymore…" She muttered.

"What is wrong lady warrior?" Thor boomed.

"Back at the camp that I…live at, there used to be a mummy that would give us prophecies. But she's not a mummy anymore. Her spirit was transferred into one of my friends-Rachel. She's here…somewhere, I don't know."

"Well that's not weird at all." I muttered.

"But then how could Stark have a dream about that same mummy?" Natasha questioned.

Annabeth bit her lip in worry. "I don't know…"

"You know what? Let's just forget about this for now and figure it out some other time. Maybe it _is_ a good idea for the both of our groups to join forces. That way we could have a greater chance of defeating Loki." Steve suggested.

Annabeth nodded. "yeah…thats a good idea."

The other nodded their agreement, except for Bruce. He was shifting his weight from one foot to the other and he looked…off. Like something was bothering him. His body language screamed nervous and he was fiddling with his hands constantly. He turned away from Annabeth and noticed me watching him. I quickly looked away.

"Who's Loki?" Annabeth asked when Rogers mentioned him.

"He's the guy we told you about. Thor's brother." Banner replied.

"You have an enemy here too don't you?" Clint asked Annabeth.

Annabeth flinched when he said enemy. "His name is Luke. He died last year."

"Wait, hold up for a second. What the fuck? He died and now he's alive again?" I asked her like she was crazy.

"Yes," She said with absolute seriousness. "Something happened. Believe it or not, but there is such a thing as the underworld. Hades, the god of the underworld rules that domain. He must have escaped somehow."

My eyes widened.

_There is an underworld._

I added that to the growing list of things that were so crazy, I had a hard time believing them.

"We have to find the other half bloods. If we don't, we might as well not have a chance to get out of this mess." Annabeth plainly stated.

With that happy thought in mind, we set off into the forest once again, now with 2 more people added to our group.

* * *

An hour later found us walking along a half beaten trail.

I was still lugging my heavy armour, wishing that I had a newer version. I longed for the small bracelet on my wrist. But no, I had to be stuck carrying a big ass suitcase.

The reason I wasn't wearing the armour was because I had to save energy. This old version of the armour sapped my energy a lot faster than I would like. And I needed all the energy I could get.

Bruce and I were walking at the back of the group. As I quickly stole a glance at him, I still noticed something wrong about him.

I noticed that every once in a while, Bruce's eyes would flash a sudden green before it disappeared as the brown took over once again. I'd seen it happen a few times now. I wanted to say something, to ask why it was happening, but I couldn't bring myself to speak about it.

I had too many emotions going through my own head at the moment.

Seconds later, a huge bang jolted me out of my thoughts.

"What the hell was that?" Annabeth asked frantically.

No one had the time to answer. We were all to busy looking up at the quickly darkening sky. Just seconds ago it had been a clear sunny day. I stopped dead in my tracks.

"This be a lightning storm!" cried Thor.

There was another crackle before I saw a huge flash of lightning appear in the high up sky. The next flash of lightning wasn't as harmless.

A zigzag of light zoomed down into the forest right in front of our group. The lightning touched down on the ground just metres away from us and I was thrown back by the shockwave.

I landed on the grass, hard. I frantically got up, panic clouding my brain. I couldn't think properly. My fight or flight instances took over and the one thought that was left in my head was _run._

And that was exactly what I did. I ran, and I heard people running behind me. The others were following right behind me.

Another flash of dangerous lightning touched down a little too close to us for comfort. Thor manages to throw his hammer at the last moment, absorbing all the excess energy and prevented it from hitting us.

Out of the corner of my eye, I could see Bruce and Rogers. They were running as fast as they could as well. We whizzed in and out of trees, trying our best not to run into one. Another crackle of thunder rolled through the sky. It was so loud, it sounded like a bomb detonating. A strange ringing in my ears made itself heard. My hearing was muffled.

The next moment almost seemed to run in slow motion.

As I was running, I realized I was running straight into a trap. If a bolt of lightning came down at the front of the group, I would be the first one down.

I guess I realized this too late as an enormous flash of lightning came down from the sky right in front of me. I didn't have any time to slow down before I was hit with it.

The lightning hit me with unimaginable force. I could feel it coursing through my body as tendrils of electricity flew through my veins. My eyes widened in frozen shock.

Unimaginable pain rocked me and my breathing hitched in my throat.

That was the moment I realized that I was going to die. There was no way that my arc reactor could have survived that. It would short out from all the excess energy. I didn't even have my suit on. My suit would've absorbed all the excess energy. But without it, I was vulnerable.

The 30 seconds it took me to lose consciousness felt like an eternity.

There were so many people who I wanted to do right with. Bruce, Pepper….even Rogers. I was warming up to him…ever so slightly.

The pain grew until I only felt numbness. I sunk to the ground as my knees gave way.

…_Maybe this could be okay_.

I had tried as hard as I could have to do right with them. Even if they hadn't noticed, I tried. I've become so different then I was before the days in the cave. I'm a changed person even if no one, not even Pepper had the guts to see that. Maybe death could be better than the torture that was life. Maybe for once I would finally have peace.

I looked down at my arc reactor just in time to see the glowing light fizzle out.

_Maybe this could finally be peace._

Maybe all of my suffering would finally end.

But no matter how much I tried to convince myself it was okay, it wasn't. I never had the chance to say goodbye to Pepper. This was like a replay of the nuclear attack on New York all over again. When I had tried to call Pepper and she never picked up. It was a replay.

It was the universes way of saying that it had a twisted sense of humour.

I didn't even get to give Bruce a proper goodbye. I didn't want to leave like this, with so many loose ends left untied. I didn't think he would be able to live with himself if I died. He would only run away from his problems once again. It was only because of me that he stayed at Avengers tower. If it weren't for me, he would've left a long time ago and run off to some next third world country.

But I was loosing myself.

I could feel my heartbeat slowing, and breathing becoming dangerously shallow. It was getting harder and harder by the second to draw a breath in.

This couldn't be it. It couldn't be.

_I don't want to leave like this…_

That was when I sunk into the never-ending white.

* * *

Bruce

* * *

No. NO. This couldn't be happening.

I stopped dead in my tracks, my heart pounding too quickly for comfort in my ears. I didn't bother trying to calm myself down, I only ran. Ran towards the fallen Tony Stark.

Just as quickly as it had started, the lightning storm stopped. It's job was finished, hitting one of our own.

I was cold all over. From a distance I saw Tony's arc reactor fizzing out of light until finally there was nothing but darkness.

I wanted to cry out, but I couldn't. My tongue was tied and I felt numb. Numb all over.

He couldn't leave me like this. Not yet. He was the only true friend I had in _years_. The only one who wasn't afraid of my inner monster. The only one….

_No._

I refused to believe that he was gone. As I finally reached him, I sunk to my knees beside where he lay. I frantically checked his wrist for a pulse. I waited ten seconds, twenty seconds and felt nothing. Not the tiniest rise.

My eyes widened. I placed my ear close to his mouth to see if he was breathing or not. I felt nothing.

My own breathing became laboured. I tried to push against his chest to try and jostle his heart but nothing happened. I pushed to the point that I was hitting him with my fists, but still not light appeared.

I felt someone run up behind me. Whoever it was, wrapped their arms around my chest to stop me from hitting Tony any further. I struggled and punched and pushed to get away from him. I had to save Tony. That was my number one priority.

I felt a sudden burst of manic energy as I pulled angrily away from my captor. It worked and whoever it was, was ripped away from me.

I looked back at Tony's dead eyes and felt tears well up in my own. It was too much to handle. The tears spilled and freely rolled down my cheek as a wave of sadness rolls over me.

He is dead. _He is dead…_

I couldn't take it anymore. I sobbed out loud. I could vaguely feel the others watching me from a distance, trying to give us space and I was thankful for that.

My sadness was taken over by sheer anger soon enough.

How could he leave me like this? How dare he?

I gritted my teeth and clenched my hands into tight fists. A deep guttural growl started to form in my throat. I felt another hand hold my shoulder and try to pull me back, but I shrugged away from them hard.

That was when I knew that I was about to transform. I was just about ready to fight off the impending disaster when something quite the opposite happened.

I didn't turn into the other guy.

Instead of changing, I felt my anger grow until it physically made my vision blur. I clenched my hands into tighter fists and placed them on Tony's chest in barely controlled rage. I felt a hot white sensation flow from inside of me, through my arms and down into my clenched fists. The hotness spread until I felt it in the tips of my fingers.

I didn't know what I was doing. It was like I was being taken over by the Hulk, but I still had my brain. I couldn't control my actions but somehow, I could still think clearly.

I spread my fingers out on Tony's chest. I could feel the white hotness being transferred to Tony through my fingers. Twenty seconds later, I start feeling a heartbeat pumping blood through his chest.

I almost cried out in relief, but I couldn't stop just yet. I kept my fingers on his chest for another twenty seconds until he finally takes in one long, shaky breath. His eyes stay closed, but I know for a fact that he is breathing.

That was when I felt the residual anger and hotness I had inside of me ebb away. I was breathing heavily and still leaning against Tony on the ground.

He was alive. _He was alive._

I shakily stood up and stepped back to give Tony some space. I gave myself some time to calm down as well. My eyes closed and I concentrated on my breathing.

Breath in. 1,2,3. Breath out. 1,2,3.

Slowly I felt my heartbeat and breathing slow down. I had just noticed that my pulse watch had beeped rapidly throughout that entire ordeal. That slowed as well to an annoying constant beeping.

That was when the full weight of what I had just done came back to hit me. I had just brought someone back from the dead. How in the world had I done that? First of all, I was sure I ws on the verge of turning into the Hulk. I could _feel_ my bones starting to stretch and pop. But something had stopped it. Instead of converting my anger into the other guy, I somehow used the other guy to heal Tony.

And I didn't even know if that was even possible.

I heard a groan come from the ground. I opened my eyes to see Tony's wide ones on the ground.

"Wha-" He cleared his throat. "What the hell just happened?"

I scrunched my eyes shut briefly and went to kneel beside him. My tongue was roiling around in my mouth and I was biting the inside of my lip in nervousness.

He looked up at me with a tired expression on his face. He looked so broken and I was sure that I looked the same way. He didn't even bother to make a snide comment.

I helped him sit up on the ground.

We looked at each other for a moment, both not knowing what to do next.

Finally, it was Tony who was the first to act. He threw his arms around me into a hug.

I stiffened at first, not knowing how to react to the sudden move. Slowly though, I relaxed into his grip. It was comforting and warm.

I couldn't remember the last time I had this much human contact. It was…nice.

I had longed for something like this for so long. I just didn't know how much I wanted it until now.

* * *

Tony

* * *

I slowly let go of Bruce after finding the small reassurance that I got from that.

He stood up from the ground and straightened himself. I tried to stand up, but I was met with a sharp pain in my chest that made me feel woozy.

Bruce lent me a hand and slowly helped me up. I got to my feet and Bruce steadied me. We were all silent for a while.

"Okay, someone want to explain to me what...just happened?" Clint asked finally.

He was looking at Bruce more than he was looking at me.

Bruce frowned before saying, "I honestly have no idea."

I scrunched my eyebrows in confusion. "Wait, am I missing something here?"

Natasha and Clint exchanged glances.

"Bruce just saved you. You weren't breathing and somehow, Bruce did something to make you alive again." Natasha replied.

My eyes widened. "What? How?"

_I thought for sure I was dead._

Bruce had a look of distress on his face. "Look, I-I don't know how. I was just _so angry._ I thought I was going to turn into the Hulk….but I didn't. Instead, I somehow….healed Tony…"

I caught a glance of Annabeth hanging around a few ways away, not really being included in our group. She must have felt like an outsider.

"But if you were angry, how did you not turn into the mighty green warrior?" Thor asked from somewhere behind me.

Bruce sighed and pinched his nose. "Look guys, I don't know what happened. But something about this place…I don't know…"

He trailed off and we decided that it was better not to ask any more questions and not aggravate the doctor.

I didn't know what had happened, but by the looks on everyone's faces, it must have been pretty amazing.

"But-" Annabeth started to say, but Bruce cut her off.

"Look can we just let it go?" He snarled as a flash of green appeared in his eyes.

Annabeth backed away a couple of steps and out of the corner of my eye, I saw Natasha's hand brush against her knife. The green quickly disappeared as his expression turned to one of shame.

"Sorry."

We stood awkwardly in a small group, a dull pain pounding through my arc reactor. I was pretty sure that the shrapnel near my heart was now even closer to it than it was before. I hoped that it wasn't serious. For now though, I could live with the pain. I would learn to bear it. We had more pressing matters to discuss.

"Guys, we really need to find Fury." Clint finally stated.

Right. Fury.

In the heat of the moment I had almost forgotten about him. I almost forgot that he was paralyzed in an unfriendly place somewhere in this forest.

"We should keep moving." suggested Rogers.

No one needed to be told twice.

Rogers led the way through the forest as we followed behind him. I leant on Bruce, as he helped me walk through the trees. The pain wasn't as bad as it was before and it slowly seemed to be getting better. I was just happy with the thought that I wasn't letting down my team.

In front of us, I saw Natasha pick up some berries and leaves from nearby bushes here and there. She would smell them and keep some of them in the backpack she was carrying, while the rest she would throw away.

A little while later, it grew dark. We stopped at a clearing for the night after having no luck in finding Fury

It was like we were going in circles. I swear that I kept seeing the same tree over and over again.

Another hour passed and the others were starting to drift off. I was once again, the last person to be awake. The pain in my chest was keeping me up. I couldn't sleep with the dull throb consistent with my heartbeat ricocheted in my chest.

I sighed into the cold night.

I just wished that this was all just a dream. That I could just wake up and be back with Pepper, back in the tower where it's all normal. But that would just be childish and just that-a dream.

The longing for that stayed in the back of my mind as I slowly drifted off into sleep.

* * *

**Omg, once again, I am soooo sorry for the late update.**

**So much work for school... :(**

**But dont worry, I'll have the next chapter up...soon?**

**Hopefully!**

**Please leave a review if you are so kind ot tell me how i'm doing.**

**-detective DG**


	25. Chapter 25

**OMG. So a week ago, I watched iron man 3 and it…was…AWESOMMMEE!**

**HOLY SHIT it was soooo good. If you haven't watched it, you need to watch it. It is just too good.**

**And the end of credits scene? JUST PERFECT!**

**Now, enough fangirling, this is chapter 25 and the long awaited…Loki chapter!**

**We left off with Luke and Loki sleeping after finding their first object-the arrowhead flower. We also learned that Luke has now found out about Percy's magical box that Poseidan gave to him in a dream. **

**Now this chapter is them finding the second item.**

**Here we go!**

* * *

Loki

* * *

We awoke the next day and immediately started to trek toward the second object, after eating a quick breakfast of our leftover supplies from the cornucopia.

When we woke, I noticed something…different about Luke. He had a strange fire in his eyes. He didn't speak to me once and seemed to only keep his head down in serious determination.

Something was up, and I knew it. Something had happened when we slept. I knew it, but I didn't say anything. I would wait and see if he would open up first. If he didn't, I would find out anyways because I have my ways.

So we started walking once again, with me leading and him following behind me.

As we walked, my thoughts wandered over to my…brother. Even inside my head, I spat his name in disgust. He was in the forest as well of course. I had always been able to feel his emotions the most of anyone else's. Of course he was with the avengers, and I hated him for that.

_He _betrayed _me._ Not the other way around.

I didn't know his exact location of course, or I would've led us straight to him. I resented not being able to know where he was. Something was blocking my magic and it was just _so annoying._

After all, he was the reason I was bitter to everyone.

He never tried once to listen to what I felt, about…anything. It was always about him, him, him. When he was about to be crowned as the next king of Asgard, no one had even though about asking me how I felt about it.

I had always been the odd one out-the third wheel. As I was standing in the audience, watching my brother about to be crowned, I found out. I found out that I was never going to be the king. "Father" never did care about me much at all. If Thor did something, it was always blamed on me. I always got the worst punishment. No one cared about me. No one at all

No one cared if I was silently seething from the inside because of Thor becoming king. No one cared if I was broken when I found out that I was adopted. I was always the one no one cared about.

My lips quirked up into a small, bitter smile. Of course, everyone had _cared_ when I attacked New York. The only thing that would catch my "father's" and Thor's attention was starting a battle. I had gone to such drastic lengths and all I ever wanted was a father's pride and a brother's acknowledgement.

I was furious at them. I was furious at them all. The Avengers. Thor. _My father…_

I let out a puff of air. I saw dew sitting on the branches of some of the trees and the grass on the ground. The sun was shining was shining down through the branches, illuminating the droplets. The sight was definitely not fit for my emotions.

Now, I will finally be able to get my long-awaited revenge. I would finally be rid of the Avengers once and for all. That would include my so-called _brother._

Even when we were young, I would be the only one left out. I would be the strange crazy person in the back. No one would ever acknowledge me. People only talked to me because I was Thor's...brother. If I hadn't been, no one would've given me a second thought. I had realized that a long time ago.

My parents wouldn't even try to hide the fact that I wasn't normal. They would rat me out all the time, blame me for whatever Thor would have done. And I would've taken the blame without question.

Not anymore.

No, I see it now. It's all so clear now.

I see how horribly wrong everything in my life has gone.

Thor would see now. He would see how he ruined me. How he shunned me and tried to look like he cared. It never worked. I always saw right through it all.

I was snapped out of my dark thoughts when Luke finally spoke up.

"Hey, I think we're here." He said softly.

Sure enough, I found that he was right. I hadn't even realized it, but I had been subconsciously leading us toward the edge of the forest this entire time. It was strange the way my magic worked at times. It was almost like it had a mind of its own.

All around me stood trees, as tall as the eye could see. I craned my neck to the sky, trying to find the canopies of the trees, but I could barely see them.

I could not tell which one of the trees was the tallest one. They all looked the same. I wandered around, trying to find a difference in the height, but alas, they were all tall. Too many leaves and canopies covered the tips of the trees.

"Damn, these are some tall trees." Luke whispered.

"Yes," I mused. "But which is the tallest?"

The question was left unanswered as we walked around the plethora of enormously large trees. I hadn't seen this many tall trees, even in Asgard.

Finally, we approached a tree that was different from the rest. It had not as many leaves as the other trees and the canopy of the tree also started at a higher height than the others. I looked up and could actually see bits of the pristine blue sky through the leaves.

"I think this is the tallest ree." Luke stated from somewhere behind me.

I nodded in agreement . This was definitely the tallest tree. It's trunk was larger by at least a full metre as well.

"A leaf from the tallest tree in the forest…" I repeated what Chealatos had told me, more to myself than to Luke.

"How do we get a leaf that is way up there?" Luke asked, pointing a finger toward the canopy in bewilderment.

I thought for a moment about that very problem. If I had more magic, I would've been able to lift one of us all the way up to the top. But that was out of the question as I was burning up my magic too quickly. There had to be another way.

That was when I had an idea.

"Luke, is it possible that you can climb this tree?"

He was silent for a moment. "I…could try. I'm not sure."

I nodded. He started walking toward the tree until he found a low enough branch to hop on to. He used his hands and feet to climb to the next branch and the one after that. He was calm and coordinated until he was holding on to the fifth branch. His foothold slipped and he tumbled all the way down to the ground.

"Agh!" He screamed on the way down. He landed with a thump and a groan.

I silently started to laugh as he lay on the ground, the wind knocked out of him. I tried to hold it in. Finally, I composed myself enough to ask, "Are you okay?"

He groans again. "Do I look okay to you?" He dragged himself off the round and limped over to stand next to me.

"So…what now?" He asked.

For once, I was out of ideas. I had nothing. There would be no way to get up to the top of that tree without dying. It was too tall and the canopy was too high up.

"I do not know."

Luke looked at me with disbelief. I figured even he didn't think that I would ever say that, but I just had.

I glared at him evilly enough to stop him looking at me with that expression on his face. Good. I still needed to keep up my reputation. I couldn't afford going soft just yet.

Just then, I heard a strange beeping noise. I scrunched my eyebrows, trying to find the source of the noise. Luke had noticed it too.

That was when I saw a small parachute attached to a round ball floating to the ground next to us.

"What is that?" Luke asked. I didn't answer him and instead walked over to the thing that had now landed. I picked it up and examined it. As soon as I touched it, the thing opened with a hiss.

I almost dropped it in surprise. When I got over my initial shock, I peered inside the container to see what was inside. Luke came up beside me, curious as well.

Inside were two small…things that almost looked like pieces of paper. They were grey with tiny little suction cups on it.

"What the hell…" I heard Luke mutter.

I took them out of the container and found that underneath them was a small slip of paper. I took it out and read what was on it.

"Put them on your feet." I read aloud.

Luke took the things from me and experimentally placed them over the soles of his shoes. He walked around a couple of steps and then stopped.

"They don't feel any different." He stated.

I frowned. There had to be some connection between these…things and the fact that we had to get a leaf that was up really high.

Suddenly, an idea hit me.

"Luke, place your foot on the tree."

"What?"

"Didn't you hear me the first time? I said put your foot on the tree!" I snapped.

He mumbled something before reluctantly doing as I told him to. He lifted his leg to waist height and carelessly put his foot on the bark of the tree.

"Well? Now…" He trailed off.

"What?" I prompted.

"My foot's stuck." He tried to remove his foot. He grunted and pulled, but his foot stayed stuck. After an obvious amount of effort only did his foot become unstuck.

I smirked. Just as I suspected. We could use these things to get the leaf that was way up there.

It seemed to dawn on Luke what these things were for as well. He experimentally placed his foot on the tree once again. Once he knew it was stuck, he slowly lifted his other foot. He frantically reached for a nearby tree branch and held on to it as he brought his other foot up.

He yelped in surprise as he was still stuck to the tree with no feet on the ground.

"Holy shit!" He exclaimed in surprise.

"keep going!" I prompted him to go faster.

He did the same thing and brought both feet up one by one and slowly climbed up the tree, all the while holding on to the branches with his hands for extra support.

It took him about five minutes to get halfway up.

"Do not look down!" I shouted up at him.

"Easy for you to say!"

Another five minutes and he had carefully and precariously reached the canopy. I saw him hold on to a branch that had a bunch of leaves on them as he stretched his arm to get one of them. He almost stumbled and fell, but managed to hold his balance.

He reached out once again and this time, his hand touched a leaf. He grabbed it and pulled. Once he had the leaf safely in his hand, he carefully and slowly made his way back down. It seemed harder going down than it was going up.

When he finally had his feet firmly planted on the ground, he said, "the next time we have to do something like that, you're doing it."

I furrowed my eyebrows but didn't say anything. Instead, I snatched the leaf away from his and observed it. It was an odd sea green colour and was in the shape of a really big maple leaf.

I held on to it carefully as not to damage it and started walking right away. We had to get this leaf to where we had buried the arrowhead flower before setting off to find the third item.

Of course, I knew the way so it would take us no time at all to get there.

* * *

An hour and a half later found us at where we had buried the flower in the desert at the edge of the forest.

I ordered Luke to dig at the location where our flower was kept. He dug and soon enough, recovered our flower that did not look damaged at all. I handed him the leaf and he carefully placed it next to the flower. He then shoveled the sand on top of both the items. He stood up and said, "Two down, one more to go."

"yes…" I mused.

_Finally, you will need the roots of the rare bushwick plant at the centre of the forest._

Yes…I knew where the centre of the forest was. It was giving off a slight pulsing energy and I could sense it. It was slowly but surely drawing everyone in the forest to it. I could sense everyone slowly trekking toward it. Of course, they didn't know it, but I did.

I had a strange feeling that the final showdown would somehow take place over there.

I would have to prepare myself for that.

I decided not to tell Luke about that. That would definitely work to my advantage.

I would wait until they are all together before I take them out one by one with my power being increased tenfold. At first it will look like Luke is helping me, but I will strike him down when he least expects it.

Heh heh heh.

This will be exiting.

**And there you go. **

**Yay, I got the chapter up early! **

**Next chapter will also be up soon. **

**-Detective DG**


	26. Chapter 26

**Hey again! **

**Here is chapter 26 and we left off when Thalia and the gang found Percy. They still haven't found the others yet, but they just might…..**

**And here we go!**

* * *

Thalia

* * *

Another day passed since the day we found Percy wandering around the forest. And now we were trekking yet again.

It was getting just a _little_ bit boring.

It had been hours and Percy was walking beside me. We hadn't spoken much throughout our journey. It was nearing the end of another day and we still hadn't found Annabeth, or that Bruce banner character Percy was talking about. I could see Percy slowly getting more and more worried. It was like the entire fiasco with Atlas all over again.

I had tried to reassure him and tell him that we would find her but apparently it didn't work. He was getting more and more jumpy by the second and I could tell.

I had taken over in leading the group along with Percy, but he didn't do much. He let me lead.

If something wasn't going to happen soon, he was going to lose hope.

But…to be honest, I was losing hope as well. I doubted we would ever find anyone else in the forest. After all, it had to be a huge forest.

But I couldn't be sure, so I kept walking.

I chose a direction to walk in and for some reason, I felt something pulling me in that direction. It was so subtle that I hadn't felt it until today. Now that I was sure of it, I welcomed the feeling and kept walking. I didn't know why, but it just felt…right.

As we walked, it was a few minutes later when I heard the voices.

I stopped walking abruptly and strained my ears. I heard voices….along with footsteps.

_No way._

I was imagining this. There was no one around. It was just my overly active imagination.

That thought was broken as I heard Percy frantically say, "Do you guys hear that?"

"Yeah, who is it?" Nico asks.

"They're coming from up ahead." Clarrise pointed out.

I heard Grover bleat nervously from behind.

"Take out your weapons." I whispered to them.

I heard multiple swords and knives come out into the open. Percy uncapped his sword and I notched an arrow into my bow. We creeped forward as quietly as we could toward the voices, but they suddenly stopped. They were still in the distance and there was a bend in the trail.

I could hear some branches crack in the distance. They knew we were here.

Percy and I led the other half bloods up the trail. We had all of our weapons trained at whoever was approaching.

I counted to three on my fingers and we burst out of the bush with our weapons pointing at the others.

And we were met with a very strange sight.

In front of me, I saw 6 people. And each one was more stranger than the next.

I noticed one man wearing what looked like….armor? Another was holding a blue and red shield and there was also a man who held a hammer in his hands, while wearing a cape.

A cape? Really? That had to be a little old school.

Then I saw a man and a woman with fiery red hair. The woman was holding a gun while the man was holding what looked like a really high-tech bow and arrow. I frowned at him. He was looking at me with a strange expression on his face as well. This was new. He couldn't be one of Apollo's children. I had never seen him at camp. So who was he?

Finally, I saw a…normal looking man who looked tense and really out-of-place beside the other strange people. I wondered what he was doing here.

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Percy lower his sword. I nudged him angrily to keep his sword on them, but he ignored me.

So instead I kept my arrow on them.

"Who the hell are you people?" I demanded.

Before anyone could answer, I heard a female voice shout, "Wait! Don't shoot!"

Whoever it was, stepped out into sight and my eyes widened. It was Annabeth. She ran to the front of the group she was with, blocking us from them.

I looked over at Percy and saw his eyes widen. He dropped his sword and ran over to her. Annabeth ran over to him as well and they grabbed each other and hugged. I saw them share a kiss.

"Well, that was random." I heard the armour deadpan.

Annabeth and Percy finally broke apart and stood side by side.

"Hey Bruce." Percy said to the normal looking guy. His eyes were wide and were looking at us one by one. He nodded at Percy.

_Wait, Bruce?_

Percy had told us about him. He was the guy who could turn into the monster.

But…he looked so _normal._ Way more normal than the rest of them. I slowly lowered my bow and the other half bloods followed suit.

Annabeth turned to the other group.

"Guys, these are the half bloods I was telling you about."

"Then you must be the avengers!" Nico exclaimed, child like glee in his voice.

"Yes. We are," said the guy with the shield. He had an air of confidence about him which made me think that he was the leader of the group. "Who are you?" He asked Nico.

"Nico D'Angelo, son of Hades, Greek god of death."

The guy nodded slowly, with a just a hint of surprise on his face. But there was not nearly enough surprise in his face as there should be and that made me think that Annabeth must've told them about us.

Then he said, "I'm Captain Steve Rogers but I'm also known as Captain America."

I cocked my head to the side. Well, that did explain the shield.

"You know what? I think its time for some introductions." Annabeth prompted. She beckoned the Avengers to go ahead.

The person in the armour stepped forward first. There was a clank and hiss as his faceplate lifted up to show his face. "Well, I'm the famous Tony Stark, otherwise known as Iron Man."

Next it was the man with the bow and the woman with the guns. The woman spoke first.

"Natasha Romanoff, or Black Widow if you prefer." She said in a cold voice. I had a gut feeling that she was someone I had to look out for.

Then the man spoke up. "Clint Barton, A.K.A Hawkeye at your service." He gave a mock bow.

Then the man with the hammer said, "I am Thor Odinson, son of Odin and prince of Asgard."

No way. An Asgardian? I'd heard about them, but only in legend. I'd never actually met one, and here I was standing in front of Thor, who I also knew was the god of thunder.

I glanced over at Percy and saw that he had a scowl on his face. That was understandable considering Thor was norse _and_ the god of thunder.

Finally, the fairly normal man who Percy had addressed earlier, introduced himself when he was prodded by that guy named Tony Stark.

"Oh, I'm Bruce Banner also known as the, um, Hulk."

I noticed the hesitation and uncertainty in his voice as he introduced himself and the Hulk.

Once they were all done their introductions, we had to introduce ourselves.

I spoke first. "I'm Thalia Grace, daughter of Zeus, god of lightning."

At that, I saw Thor's eyes widen a little. I smirked inwardly.

Next was Percy. "I'm Percy Jackson, son of the awesome Poseidon, god of the seas."

There was no reaction in Thor's body language other than a slight furrow of the eyebrows. I had no way of telling if there was going to be complications between him and Percy or not.

"Rachel Elizabeth Dare here, not exactly a Half Blood, but I am the Oracle."

"What the hell is an oracle?" Tony Stark called out.

"I can tell the future at times when the Oracle decides to take over my body. I tend to spew out prophecies and keel over after she's done using my body as a toy." Rachel said all of this with a calm, steady voice.

For a second, I thought I saw a flicker of sympathy in the man names Bruce's expression. But when I looked back, the expression disappeared. It must've been my imagination.

Then it was Grover. "Im Grover Underwood. Also not a half blood, but a Saitor. He rolled up his jump suit pants to show his goat legs and I heard multiple gasps.

"Mother of god, what is that?" Stark asked with disbelief in his voice.

"I'm half goat, half human."

Grover pulled down his pant legs again and the group got over their initial shock and finally, it was Clarisse's turn.

"Clarisse La Rue, daughter of Ares, god of war." To emphasize her point, she raised her spear menacingly and there was silence after that.

Percy finally broke the silence. "So….now what?"

No one answered him.

It was the captain who finally brought up the thing that was probably on everyone's mind.

"Can we trust that you are not the enemy?"

"Yes. yes you can." Percy spoke firmly. "We have an enemy in this forest too. His name is Luke Castellan and the only way that we can defeat him is by working together."

I felt a pang of sadness as he said Luke's name. We used to be friends. Then he died a hero. Now he's back and he's back to being evil. I knew ever since I laid eyes on him at the cornucopia. There had been a dark fire to his eyes and I knew. I knew that there was no good in there. I didn't know what happened, or how he had been revived but I knew it was nothing good.

"We have an enemy here too. His name is Loki and he is my brother." Thor said with a pained expression on his face. The pain was genuine enough for me to believe him. And for some reason, I had a really strong feeling that both, Luke and Loki would've joined forces by now. They wanted the same thing, and they would need all the help they could get.

I couldn't help but think about how outmatched Luke and Loki would be. Now that us and the Avengers have joined forces, they would have to verse all of us 13 people.

Wait a second….only thirteen?

If I knew anything, I knew that there should be 14 people here. 7 Half Bloods and 7 Avengers. But instead there was only 13. All the half bloods were accounted for, so that must mean that the Avengers were missing someone. I was sure of it.

"There should be one more of you." I said as I pointed at them.

They grew silent for a second before the woman with the guns-Natasha-coldly stated, "We came across some….difficulties and lost one of our own. Fury was his name and now we have to find him." She didn't elaborate and I didn't ask her to.

I glanced over to Bruce and saw his eyes widen, like he just remembered something. He nudged Stark and said, "Wait, Tony, what about your dream?" He looked impossibly insignificant in front of the rest of us.

"What dream?" Percy asked, surprised.

The man named Tony took a step forward. He sighed and said, "I had a dream where there was a mummy telling me that the Avengers had to join the Half Bloods so we could escape." He said easily.

Rachel gasped. "Wait a minute, did you say mummy?"

"Um…yeah?"

"How did she look?" Rachel asked again in a demanding tone.

"Well, _she_ was sitting on a three-legged stool and looked like how any old mummy looks. You know, shrivelled skin, scary glowing eyes, a creepy green mist surrounding her."

Rachel's eyebrows receded far into her hairline.

"No way…"

Even I was stunned. I was sure that Stark had just described the Oracle before it inhabited Rachel's body. But how was that even possible?

"What's going on? Did we miss something?" I think Clint was his name, asked.

"What you saw," Said Rachel addressing Stark. "Was the Oracle before it took over my body. It was the same exact mummy that you described to us. But the thing is….there _is_ no mummy anymore. It's just me!"

Stark opened his mouth like he wanted to say something but then closed it quickly. Bruce bit his lip in anxiousness.

"Guys….dont you think we have bigger problems to worry about?" Grover finally prompted.

"Yeah like the fact that we have no way of getting out of this place." Clarisse stated.

"But, I think that we should at least take on our enemies before we think of escaping." Thor suggested.

"Yeah exactly. But to do that, we are going to need to coöperate and work together as one team. Can we do that?" Steve Rogers asked, confidence laced through his voice.

"We have no other choice," Annabeth agreed.

"We have to work together," continued Percy.

"Yes, then if we win-no-_when_ we win, we will find out how to escape this horrible prison." Thor boomed.

"The enemy will be powerful." Clarrise pointed out as she shifted her weight from one foot to the other.

"Yes, but it's also thirteen, no, fourteen once we find Fury against only two," said Tony Stark.

I smirked slightly. This was actually working. We could actually get a chance of escaping like this.

But there was just one more thing….

"Guys…I always feel like there's something pulling me in that direction." I pointed to the left of me, down the dirt trail.

Bruce frowned like he was just starting to notice it as well. "Yeah…me too. It's like something is beckoning us to go that way."

"Exactly!" I exclaimed.

"Should we listen to it?" Asked Percy apprehensively.

"Yes," I mused. "I have a feeling that the final showdown will be wherever this feeling is pulling us."

"Me too," said Bruce once again, but with much more confidence in his voice.

"Are we ready for this?" Rogers asked, leadership mode on.

There were multiple sounds of agreement from both sides.

"You and Bruce should lead since you're the only ones who can feel it." Annabeth suggested.

I nodded and took my place at the front of the group while Bruce followed just a few steps behind me.

"Lets go," I said as we started walking.

And then we were off to fight off our enemy, not alone this time, but as one big group.

* * *

**Arright guys, this was a really hard chapter for me to write, and it didn't exactly turn out how I wanted it to, but I tried!**

**So guys, please tell me how I did and leave me a review!**

**-Detective DG**


	27. Chapter 27

**All right guys! Um….sorry about the late update. Exams were all last week and had to study. _**

**But other than that, we're really getting into the action now!**

**Now, we left off when all the Avengers and Half Bloods met each other. This is a continuation of that.**

* * *

Percy

* * *

I walked beside Annabeth through the woods. It was strange, walking around so many people when it had just been the two of us for the longest time.

But the one person that really bothered me was Thor. He was the god of thunder from _Norse_ mythology. It was bad enough with Zeus from Greek mythology. But now, along comes Thor.

I already knew I wasn't going to get along with him. I saw the look he gave me when I introduced myself. But for now, I had no choice but to deal with the guy.

I didn't know what to think about the other Avengers though. They seemed like an odd bunch. Of course, I didn't trust them in the slightest. Only Banner. And that was because he had trusted Annabeth and I with his secret.

But then again, we had no choice. None at all. Aside from everything else, I knew that the Avengers were powerful. They would be an incredible asset for us to defeat Loki and Luke.

But...my stomach was churning at the thought of facing Luke once more. To be honest, I had barely defeated him the first time. If it hadn't been for him giving himself up, I was sure that I would've died.

And for all I knew, Luke wasn't even possessed by Kronos anymore. Maybe we had a chance to revert him back to out side. I knew for sure that Annabeth would try, but I was doubting our chances. He was evil long before he was taken over by Kronos.

And to add to all of that, every step I took, I was being weighed down by the tiny box that my dad had given me. I dreaded to open it. I knew it was bad news. If I didn't have to, I would never open it. I truly didn't want to pay the price for whatever it was that I needed from the thing.

But that was exactly what scared me. What if I had no choice? What if Annabeth was dying and the only way to save her was by opening the box? Would I be able to do that?

_Of course I would._

I couldn't tell her yet though. I couldn't tell anyone. I knew she had the right to know, but I couldn't bring myself to talk about it. Every time I thought I had an opportunity, I would back out of it. I just couldn't bring myself to do it.

I sighed. It seemed like we all had stopped caring about things like water, food everything. We had become consumed in facing the enemy. And this was truly it.

"The feeling's getting stronger." I heard Thalia say from the front of our troop.

"It's like we're getting closer." Banner added.

I honestly had no idea what _feeling_ Thalia was talking about. And I tried very hard not to feel jealous because of that. So what if she could feel something that I couldn't? It wasn't like it was that big of a deal.

"Good. That's good…" The captain muttered.

As soon as he had introduced himself, I knew what Bruce had been talking about. The serum had made him more powerful. The captain _looked_ more powerful. And Bruce got the short end of that stick. Instead of becoming a better, more powerful person, he became a person concealing a horrible monster.

All in all, it sucked.

And we continued to walk.

It was dreary and boring. My feet were starting to hurt from all the walking. I wanted to ask if we could sit down for a while, but I didn't want to sound weak. No one else was complaining.

So I was glad when Tony Stark said it before I did.

He wasn't wearing his suit anymore. He carried it in his hands in what looked like a suitcase. And it looked heavy. It was no wonder he was the first person to get tired.

"Guys, you think we could sit down for a while? We've been at this for hours!"

Captain America turned around and frowned at Stark before he said, "Fine."

I could tell there was some bad history between the two of them. I could literally feel the tension.

We all sat down on branches or logs on the sides of the trail. I could see relief on many of the people's faces. Annabeth and I sat on a log opposite from everyone else. We sat together, holding hands and no one spoke. We were all too tired to. We just sat in silence.

It wasn't long before I couldn't stand not doing anything except sitting because of my horrible ADHD.

I got up abruptly and started pacing the trail. The Avengers shot me weird looks, but I ignored them. I had to do something. I couldn't stand just sitting even when my legs were killing me.

I paced back and forth, twiddling with my pen along the way. Twirling it around in my fingers, uncapping it, anything to make the restlessness go away.

But not long into my pacing, I starting feeling something strange. The ground underneath me had started to rumble. My eyes widened as I saw hair like cracks appear beneath my feet. The cracks didn't extend all the way to where the others were sitting at. They stopped when they were only a few feet away from me.

I only realized too late what was happening. I didn't have the sense to run.

The cracks beneath my feet slowly grew to fissures as the ground started to break around me.

"Percy!" I heard Annabeth cry.

A loud rumbling grew to surround me. The others had already noticed what was happening and were running towards me, but it was already too late. The ground beneath me gave away and I was falling. Falling into the ground.

"No!"

I flailed my arms, trying to look for a foot or hand hold, but I caught nothing. A scream escaped my lips and I could barely see anything. Everything was whizzing past me. The wind whistled in my ears and my hair was being whipped around in my face.

My sword slipped from my hand and tumbled down all the way to the bottom. It was a while before it touched the ground. I could hear a distant clink a while later.

That meant that there was still a long way to go.

20 seconds into the fall and my instincts took over. I tried to summon water to hold me up and stop my descent to the bottom. I gritted my teeth and clenched my hands into fists to summon whatever water was nearby. My gut clenched with the stress as only a small stream of water flowed down to meet me from the surface. It wasn't enough to stop my fall.

I finally relaxed myself as I stopped trying to survive. I came to terms that I was going to fall to my doom.

Just as I closed my eyes, I felt someone touch me.

_Wait what?_

I opened my eyes and was met with Thalia's frantic face.

"What the-"

She grabbed me and I stopped descending with a violent jerk.

"Agh!" I heard Thalia cry out.

"Thalia?" I asked, breathlessly and totally amazed.

"Yeah." She said with another grunt.

"How-" I started to say, but she cut me off.

"Not now!"

I could clearly see that she was having trouble in lifting both her weight and mine. I saw her strain against it. We ascended in slow jerks and I know that if Thalia lost even a bit of her concentration, we would tumble all the way down to the bottom.

I had to help her.

"Thalia, if you bring us closer to the surface, I can help."

I saw her nod slightly as we started rising just a bit faster.

With just a few metres away from the surface, I closed my eyes and concentrated on summoning the water I had tried and failed to summon before.

I felt the tug in my gut and I concentrated just a bit harder. I felt sweat run down my brow as I saw a steady stream of water come down to meet us from above.

"Yes!" I cried out as it came down to transport the two of us so Thalia wouldn't have to do as much work. My muscles clenched and strained as the water beneath us began to rise.

We held on to each other until we were both on solid ground.

I collapsed on to the floor along with Thalia, breathing heavily. The Avengers and Half Bloods crowded around us. Annabeth walked up to me and gave me a hug as I stood up.

"Oh Percy…" She breathed into my ear. A smile crept up my face as I held on to her.

Finally, we broke apart. I held out a hand to a very frightened looking Thalia. She accepted it, but only with a frown as she pulled herself up.

"Nice going." I muttered towards her.

"Yeah you too." She said back.

"Okay, hold up just a second. I'm lost. So you two weren't kidding when you said you had powers?" Stark stated incredulously.

"Nope we weren't." Thalia said, as calmly as she could.

"Okay, so you can fly," he pointed at Thalia. "And you can control water." He pointed at me. "Am I right?"

"Yep." I popped the p.

"And Nico can control the dead, while Annabeth is like super smart." Thalia added.

The Avengers had looks of subtle disbelief on their faces.

"See, we got our powers naturally while you guys are the opposite." I said with a smirk.

"Have care how you speak." Thor stepped towards me with his deadly hammer raised. "I too have been born like this!" He boomed.

I took a step back against my will but I masked it with a fake air of arrogance. "Yeah? Well-" But I was cut off.

"Stop it guys. We need to focus on the task at hand!" Annabeth exclaimed.

I frowned but stepped down. Then there was silence.

Banner finally broke the silence by saying, "So…anyone want to talk about what just happened?"

"Someone...is trying to stop us." Natasha Romanoff said in a deadly tone.

"Yeah. Someone, or _something_ is trying to stop us from getting to the centre. Somethings going to happen there and whatever it is, it's going to be big." Added Clint.

I agreed silently while Annabeth voiced a concern, "And our enemies are heading that way too."

"Yeah and we have to get there first." Clarrise pointed out.

And on that happy note, we started walking again with Banner and Thalia in the lead.

We would only find out later just how big the showdown would be.

* * *

It was two hours later when we stopped.

I bumbled into the person in front of me, which happened to be Stark. He almost dropped his armor on his foot and he turned around to glare at me. I shrugged with indifference toward him.

He turned back to face the front and shouted, "Why did we stop?"

"Because we're already here." I hear Banner's quiet voice which was surprisingly load enough for the rest of us to hear.

"What?" Steve Rogers asked, sounding surprised.

"Didn't you hear me? We're here."

Thor's voice was loud in the quiet of the forest. "But there is nothing here!"

"It's in front of us. After this patch of trees is a really big clearing." Thalia stated "And that's the centre."

"Well let's go then!" Nico exclaimed.

We started forward and for a minute, I was swallowed by trees. The next, I came out into a large clearing that was almost the size of 2 football fields. Our group spread out on one side of the clearing, keeping an eye out for our enemies.

"Well….this is it." Rachel said, fear filling her voice.

Grover bleated.

"Guys look." Stark pointed at the other side of the clearing.

I glanced at the trees on the other side. There was shuffling and moving from within them. A few seconds later, two men came out from the trees. One of them was definitely Luke. The other I didn't recognize, but I was sure it was Loki, the brother of Thor.

I felt Annabeth tense beside me as she saw Luke. I squeezed her shoulder to give her a bit of comfort. I didn't think it worked.

For a minute or two, both the groups stood, staring each other down like how they would in one of those cheesy wild west movies.

It was Thor who broke the stare down. "Have at thee!" he shouted as he launched himself at the two men.

The rest of us ran behind him and charged.

**And there you have it. Hopefully I'll be updating quicker now that exams are done and I don't have to go to school anymore! XD**

**-Detective DG**


	28. Chapter 28

**Ooooh we are finally at the final battle!**

**Its going to be a thrill ride now. ;)**

**So without further ado, here it is!**

* * *

Tony

* * *

It all went to hell from there.

Destruction was all around me. Pieces of debris flew around me as I placed my armor on the ground to put it on.

There was a cascade of whirs and creaks as I encased myself in the metal cocoon. I felt ten times safer with it on.

I took off towards Loki with my armor on. The half bloods and Avengers had immediately taken off and taken on their respective enemy. But both Loki and Luke were still together and I found that a bit strange. I normally thought of Loki as the "I work alone and need no help because I am so powerful" type. But here he was with this Luke character.

Honestly, when I saw Luke, I didn't see much. I mean sure, the guy had muscles and looked pretty strong for a teenager, but all I saw was a kid who was trying to be something more than he actually was. And that was it. He held a sword in his hand and seemed pretty comfortable with it but seriously, who fights with swords anymore?

Well, apparently all the half bloods did. I figured that out not too long into the fight. But they seemed pretty good at what they did so I decided not to object.

The clearing was pretty bare other than the fact that it was covered with grasses. But it wasn't long before I realized that our enemies were looking for something.

"JARVIS, tell me. What do you think those two are looking for?"

The cool British voice replied almost immediately. "_It seems they are looking for a particular type of plant sir_."

The HUD screen in front of me focused on a strange-looking plant in the middle of the clearing. "_This plant sir._"

I nodded not having time to argue. But…why would they need a plant?

"_The plant seems to be giving off an energy signature that looks vaguely Asgardian. But not exactly. It is definitely something different." _It was like JARVIS read my mind.

But even with the lack of information, I managed to figure out that Loki must want to enhance his powers. But what about Luke? Would he give some power to him as well?

…There wasn't time to contemplate things like that. All we had to do was defeat them. And quick. Before they got to the flower.

I took off towards where the majority of Avengers were situated and took hold of Rogers.

"Hey, they're trying to get that flower." I pointed towards it.

He abruptly stopped his action of throwing his shield. "What? Why?"

"I don't know but that's what they're doing. I think they want more magic. All we need to do is stop them from getting it."

He steeled his eyes and threw his shield at Loki only to have it deflected. Then he nodded and shouted, "Protect the flower! Follow me!"

The others didn't argue. Thor, Natasha and Clint followed him towards the flower and formed a protective circle around it. The Half Bloods still fought the enemy. I went over to help them.

As I got there, I realized what was happening was not good.

I saw Loki raise his staff that he somehow must've summoned with his magic and directed it towards one of the kids. I think his name was…Nico.

"No!" I shouted at him and flew over to intervene, but it was too late.

I saw Nico's eyes take on a blue hue as Loki told him to attack. The other half bloods didn't know what was happening.

"Get back!" I shouted at them.

"But Nico-" Whoever had spoken was cut off. There was a loud rumbling from beneath the earth. I looked down to see what was happening. It was then that I noticed the hair like cracks appearing in front of Nico.

I looked up and saw that he had a gruesome smile on his face. It chilled me to the bone. I looked back at the ground in front of Nico and saw that the cracks had given away to an abyss. I stepped back in surprise along with all the other half bloods.

"Oh no…" I heard someone behind me whisper.

What the hell was happening?

I soon got my answer. And I definitely did not like it.

Dead…things came crawling out of the abyss. I had no way to properly describe them. They were literally just skeletons holding swords and guns. But there were hundreds of them and they just kept crawling out of the hole in the earth one by one.

I grew rigid inside my suit.

There was no way we could take on these things. They just kept pouring out and there was no end to them. And it was all because Loki had taken control of Nico.

I shot a powerful repulser blast at a handful of the skeletons. Their bones broke apart and they clattered to the floor.

"Ha!" I exclaimed. But my success was short-lived. As quickly as I shot them, they reassembled themselves. Before I could even count to ten, the skeletons were back to their original forms with no damage whatsoever.

The girl named Thalia appeared beside me.

"They won't die like that. They _can't_ die. They're literally unbreakable. The only thing we can do is stall them." She paused. "We're going to have our hands full."

All I could do was nod. I was too busy shooting everything I had at the skeletons that got too close.

I groaned as they kept coming back together. We needed extra power. Something big and strong...

_Bruce._ _Obviously._

I quickly scanned the area and found Bruce trying to help out the others while trying maintaining control over himself. I flew over and landed with a thump beside him.

"What?" He asked through gritted teeth.

I drew back my faceplate.

"We need the hulk."

"But-" Bruce started to protest.

"No buts. We need more power and the Hulk is all we got left. There's an army of skeleton warriors that can't die and we need your help to stop them."

Bruce scrunched his eyes shut and seemed to count to ten. I looked at him expectantly.

He finally sighed and said, "Okay. Ju-just stand back please."

I backed away a couple of steps, only far enough to give him space to transform. As I waited for the Hulk to appear, I saw Bruce's body grow rigid. He let out a deep breath and I could tell that the transformation had begun.

His bones and muscles grew and popped as he started to triple in size. It truly was a magnificent thing. I only saw this once before and that was when that stupid black hole had decided to drop by in our lab. And I was definitely not used to it. I didn't think I would ever get used to it.

And it looked so _painful._

Having your bones and muscles ripped apart just so you could grow into something that was triple your size and a hundred times more dangerous.

Finally, after about a minute or two, the transformation was complete and I was face to face with the Hulk.

* * *

Bruce

* * *

I noticed two things when the transformation ended.

First, was that I was awake. I could _feel_ myself. I was awake and I wasn't in the back of the Hulk's mind. And I was sure I could feel the Hulk's subconscious poking at me as well.

So we were both awake. That was definitely a first.

The second thing I noticed was that I could see everything as well. Usually in my transformations, I couldn't see anything. I would be asleep in the back of my…the Hulk's…mind. Now though, I could see everything that was happening around me in a strange green hue.

So I tried something.

_Walk forward._

I spoke to the Hulk…or me, or someone. And surprisingly, it happened. I walked forward. Or, more like the Hulk walked forward.

And I almost trampled Tony in the process.

_'Stop!_' I mind shouted.

'_Stupid Banner.'_ I heard the Hulk rumble through my brain.

That unnerved me to no extent. It would take a lot of time to get used to that.

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Tony appear, flying next to my face.

"Hulk? Buddy, you in there?"

I tried to form words to answer Tony, but for some reason it was really difficult to.

So instead, I tried something else. _'Hulk, tell Tony that I'm here too.'_

He grunted in bare acknowledgement and rumbled, "Hulk and Banner."

I saw Tony fly back in surprise. "Wait, what?"

I tried to form words once more and found that this time, I could. With all the strength I could muster up, I said, "Tony it's me, Bruce."

Tony flew up to my…our….face and stopped, apprehensive.

"Bruce?"

"Yeah."

"But how-?"

The Hulk spoke again. "Fight now, questions later.

I smiled inwardly. I couldn't have said it better myself.

Tony was left speechless and that rarely happened. "But-you-" He stuttered. "You know what, forget this. I don't even know anymore." He threw his hands up in the air. "We'll sort this out later."

He flew off towards the growing army of dead skeletons.

'_Come on Hulk, we need to help them.'_

'_Hulk knows.'_

He started walking towards the scene of the most damage. That was with Percy and Annabeth. They were being surrounded by dozens of soldiers holding swords and guns.

When they saw me approach, they backed up. I sighed within myself. I had to tell them it was me. I forced myself to speak through the Hulk's mouth.

"Guys, I'm here."

They looked up with surprise written all over their faces. "I'll explain later," I said quickly. Then I let the Hulk do all the smashing.

I felt him-or myself-bashing the heads of skeleton people together as well as smashing some of them to the ground. Very soon, many of them were broken on the ground.

_Ha!_

I wasn't celebrating for long. As soon as we had smashed the things, they just reassembled themselves.

"Stupid!" The Hulk roared into the sky and took the things and kept smashing them repeatedly into the ground. Each time they would only put themselves together again.

"Hulk, Banner, whatever, they won't die that way! The only way we can do some damage is if we get Nico out of Loki's control." Percy shouted.

'_Puny god?'_ The Hulk rumbled inside of me.

'_Yes. We have to get the puny god.'_

"Okay." I said with difficulty in my voice. I noticed that the harder the Hulk fought, or the more energy I used up, the harder it was for me to talk to people on the outside.

I walked around the chaotic battle. Natasha, Clint, Steve and Thor were all centred around a lone flower in the middle of the clearing. Using their powers, they stopped any of the dead guys from getting too close to the flower. Most of the Half Bloods were all scattered around the clearing trying to stall the skeleton creatures.

Close to the flower in the middle, Tony and the girl named Thalia were trying to attack Loki, Luke and Nico. Both Loki and Luke seemed to be trying really hard to get the flower. What was so important about it?

I-the Hulk- ran over to them at top speed.

I could feel the Hulk's fury toward Loki. I had glimpses of our last battle with Loki. In my mind, I saw Hulk smashing him in the ground many time, over and over again. I could understand where the anger came from as ironic as it sounded.

As the Hulk and I got to Tony and Thalia, I saw the skeletons almost drowning the two of them. As quick as he could, the Hulk barreled into the thicket of them taking down a bunch of the skeletons. Of course it was pointless since they just kept fixing themselves, but it did buy us some time.

I went over to stand beside Tony and Thalia.

Thalia's eyes widen as she sees me. "Oh my god! What is that?"

I could feel the Hulk's annoyance at her words.

"That's Bruce Banner better known as the Hulk." Tony stated as normally as if he was telling her the weather. Her eyes widened.

"Yep. Hello Thalia." I said in my voice.

"Puny girl." Said the Hulk's rumbling voice.

"Oh my god…" She whispered.

"Yeah…still not used to that."

I could feel the Hulk bare his teeth in a gruesome grin.

We didn't have time to talk more. I saw the skeletons reassemble themselves and stalk slowly towards us. Tony shot repulser blast after repulser blast at them. At the same time, Thalia locked into combat with 5 of them at once.

The Hulk's strategy was, as always, to smash.

As we were too busy fighting to realize, something happened that changed the course of the battle for the worst. I wasn't paying attention at all and I would only curse myself for it later.

Only when it was too late did anyone notice that Loki had plucked the flower.

He broke off a piece of the flower and take out two other objects from inside his robe. He gave a piece of each to Luke and himself.

The next thing they did was eat the plants. Raw.

Now I only noticed these things when it was too late. That was why when Loki slammed his staff to the ground, I was very much surprised.

As he slammed his staff on to the ground, a wave that almost felt like a sonic boom rolled over us. The hulk and I were thrown back along with everyone else at least 10 feet. I heard Tony groan beside me as he got up. I wasn't the least bit hurt and sat up with ease.

The skeletons around us fell and crumbled to dust as well. I saw Nico who was the closest to Loki keel over and fall face first to the ground. I was almost positive that Loki's control over him was lifted.

Both Thalia and Percy ran to him as fast as they could after they got over their initial shock. They knelt beside him to see what was wrong.

I turned my attention back to Loki. I saw a faint shimmer of gold surrounding him, almost like an aura of power.

Tony flew up to my face.

"He has more power. I think that was why he needed the flower. It gave him the power."

I-the Hulk-nodded. That _would_ be the only reason he would need the flower. Why else would he go through so much trouble to get something as stupid as that? But the strange thing was, was that he had given some of the plants to Luke as well. That would mean that Luke has some of the magic as well.

"Now, I will have my revenge." Loki spoke slowly and deadly.

"We will have _our_ revenge." Luke intervened.

"But brother-" Thor tried to show Loki some reason.

"But brother nothing!" Luke screamed. "We are not brothers. We were never brothers and never will be brothers."

I saw hurt glimmer in Thor's eyes but it quickly disappeared.

"Luke don't do this!" Annabeth came running in from behind. She got about five feet toward them before she was stopped by what seemed to be an invisible barrier of energy.

"Why?" Annabeth asked, her voice wavering. I was sure that her and Luke had a lot of history.

"Because Annabeth! Don't you see? This is the only way that anyone can survive. This was our only choice."

"No it isnt-!" Annabeth started to say but was cut of by Loki.

"Enough! Enough games. I have waited for this for too long. Today will be your downfall." He turned to Luke and nodded. Luke copied the action.

Loki slammed his staff on to the ground once again and another wave rolled over us. But this time, it was different. As the wave rolled over top of Tony and I, the air around us wavered.

"What the hell-" But Tony couldn't finish his sentence because we were quickly sucked into blackness.

I could feel myself being forced to transform back to my original self against my will. Everything around me was distorted and I didn't know what the hell was going on. I was so confused.

Soon, the distortion of colours stopped and I was instead faced with endless black.

It was then that I realized that the real fun hadn't started yet. It was just about to begin.

**And there you have it. I hope this chapter was okay for you guys..._ I had some trouble on it.**

**So drop by, leave me a review and tell me how I did!**

**-Detective DG**


	29. Chapter 29

**Okay first of all, I want to take the time and thank everyone who has reviewed, favorited, or followed my story. 333**

**I love all you people out there taking the time out of your lives and reading my story! :)**

**And here is the next chapter! Hope you like it. It's kind of like a dream sequence and its going to prove important for the chapters to come XD.**

* * *

Percy

* * *

I was transported somewhere. I had no idea where. One second I'm in the middle of a battle with hundreds of skeletal soldiers and the next, I'm here standing in the middle of a corn field.

I look around and see Thalia and Nico standing a few ways away from me. They're looking around with bewilderment in their eyes.

I walk over to them through the tall grasses.

"Where the hell are we?" I ask.

"Don't know." Replied Thalia bluntly. I glance over at Nico to see if he had an idea where we were, but he doesn't look so good.

"Hey you all right?" I ask him.

"Yeah…ju-just what the hell happened?" His eyes grew wide. "Oh my god, did I attack you guys? I remember the….the skeletons and the army….oh no. Are the rest okay?"

I placed a hand on his shoulder. "Everyone's fine. You were taken control of by Loki. It's okay."

He shrugs my hand off violently. "No! It's not okay! I knew what I was doing and I didn't have the sense to stop myself."

"Stop it. Just stop Nico. You can't beat yourself up over that. It wasn't your fault." Thalia intervened.

He didn't say anything but I could see a change in his body language. He grew stiff and his eyes steeled menacingly. I knew what was happened. He was forming a grudge. That was his fatal flaw. He held grudges. Sometimes this was a good thing, and other times it was bad. This time however, it could help us defeat Loki and Luke if he were to focus all of his anger towards them.

"So…again…where are we?" Nico asked darkly.

"I don't know. We weren't here before when we were fighting Luke and Loki." Thalia stated.

"Yeah…" I mused as I surveyed the grassy area. There was nothing as far as the eye could see. Just grass, grass, and more grass.

But just as I thought this, something happened that changed the nothingness.

As we stood in the field, the world around us slowly warped and twisted into something totally different.

The colours and shapes more around and around and I was getting dizzy.

"What's happening?" I heard Nico cry from somewhere in the middle of all the colours.

"I don't know!" I hollered back.

As the colours zoomed in and out of my vision, I fell to the ground. It was all too much. I clutched my head in agony and waited for it to end.

Just as I knew I couldn't take any more, the world stopped spinning. Everything around me stood at a stand still and I got up shakily and looked around.

At first, what I was looking at looked like heaven. Or…pretty close to it.

What I saw, was home.

Nico and Thalia got up and came to stand beside me. They looked around with amazement on their faces.

"Is it….?" Thalia asked slowly.

I nodded. "It is."

Around us were all 12 cabins. I could see the Poseidon and Hades cabin on one side and the Zeus cabin on the other.

We truly were home.

Just as I was about to walk over to my cabin, someone from the Athena cabin came out to meet me. It was Annabeth of course. I smiled softly at her and she smiled back.

Slowly, people I knew from all the cabins came out to meet us. We were surrounded by so many people.

I saw Beckondorf, Silena and Chiron among them.

I smile at every one of them and for once, I am completely at peace.

It didn't last for long.

It started with Annabeth.

Just as she was about to wrap me in a big hug, I see the sharp edge of a sword protrude out of her abdomen.

At first, I don't know what's happening. But then, Annabeth collapses into my arms, her eyes glassy. Blood starts to pour out of her body on to my arms. I couldn't move. I couldn't speak.

I sank to my knees with Annabeth still in my arms.

"Annabeth!" I whispered.

She didn't answer. As I feel around for a heartbeat, I can't find one. She was dead and I couldn't do anything about it.

I felt tears well up in my eyes. The love of my life, dead. I lay her limp body on the ground as gently as I could. I run a hand over her face and close her eyes. Then I put my head in my hands and scrunch my eyes shut. Its all I can do from breaking down.

"Oh my god, Percy!" I hear Thalia yell from somewhere far, far away. I remove my head from my hands and as soon as I do that, all around us, people start falling. I see Chiron fall to the ground with a blade poking out of his body.

Then Silena went down, and beckendorf, and Clarrise then Rachel.

The next thing I know, only Thalia, Nico and I were remaining.

We were surrounded by pools of blood with people scattered everywhere. All around us there was nothing but red. I was in a slaughterhouse.

I stand up shakily and back away a couple steps in sheer devastation. I cover my mouth with my hand and Thalia and Nico come to stand beside me.

"No…this can't be real…" Nico mutters.

I feel tears roll down my face. I couldn't speak.

"No…wait a second…this can't be real." Thalia said quietly.

I shoot her a harsh look. "What do you mean this can't be real? Look around us!"

"No, I mean we get here just seconds after Loki and Luke send a shock wave above us? Don't you think thats a bit weird? This has to be them."

My body tensed. It took me a few minutes, but I realized that she was right. This couldn't be real. It was too impossible to be real. Just seconds ago, we had been at the clearing in the forest and now we're at camp? It couldn't be real. I just had to believe that she was right.

Because if I didn't, I would loose it.

"Ok…so what do we do now?" I ask, my voice shaky.

"We can't do anything. I guess we just have to _think_ that this is not true. Then maybe that thought will come true…." Thalia suggested.

I glanced at Nico. He shrugged and said, "It's worth a try."

I look around at the broken mangled bodies and realize that I had absolutely nothing to loose. Then I close my eyes and hope that Thalia and Nico followed my lead.

I repeat one line in my mind over and over again.

_Annabeth is with me, not dead._

_Annabeth is with me…not dead._

_Annabeth is…with me…not dead._

Then there is silence.

…...

* * *

As I open my eyes, I'm met with a completely different scene.

We're in the underworld. Thalia and Nico both beside me.

They stood looking as bewildered as I was.

Why?

_Because_ we were in the underworld.

But that's not all. Surrounding us was an entire army of dead people. It was the battle with Luke and Loki all over again.

"No…." Nico mutters from the left of me.

This had to be Nico's memory, or fear or whatever the hell this all was. Something bad was going to happen now for sure.

The dead army started to close on us. We tried to back away, but they formed a circle around us. We were trapped on all sides with no where to go.

"Um, Nico…"I start to say, but I trail off when two of the dead people walk forward from the army.

One looks…oddly familiar. _She_ can't be more than 15 years old. The other was taller, more mature. Obviously in her adulthood.

"Nico?" The girl asks in a sad voice.

"Bianca?"

_Of course._

It was Bianca. I recognize her now. I don't know why I didn't right away.

But something was wrong. She didn't seem to notice either Thalia or I. She only looked at Nico. It was the same case with all of the other dead people. They all didn't seem to notice either of us. They didn't acknowledge our presence.

It was like _we_ were the ghosts.

"Nico why'd you let me die?" Bianca spoke again.

Nico winced. "I didn't know!"

"You betrayed me." She said harshly.

I glanced at Nico and saw that he was lost for words. He looked broken and was slightly shaking.

Next the older lady spoke. "Nico, I miss you so much."

"Mom?"

"Yes. Why didn't you come meet me in the underworld? You could have if you tried hard enough."

He took a step back. "But I did try!"

"Not hard enough." she said coldly.

Again Nico winced. Slowly the dead around us started to close in on us closer.

"Nico, this isn't real!" Hissed Thalia. "Remember that!"

Nico ignored her.

"But Bianca, I couldn't have saved you!"

He seemed oblivious to the fact that we were about to be suffocated by the dead.

"Yes you could have. You just didn't try hard enough. You let Percy Jackson kill me."

"Percy…" He muttered.

I saw his body grow rigid. He turned towards me with fire in his eyes. He was being brainwashed by Bianca and his mother. I saw his hands clench into fists.

"Nico, they're not right, don't listen to them!" I said with desperation.

He ignored me and kept walking up to me, looking like he was going to go all Hades on me.

"Nico don't do this!" Thalia shouted and for a second, I saw his eyes clear up. He stopped walking towards me.

"What…?"

"Look, we have to get out of here." Nico looks up at me with bewildered eyes. And at that moment, everything turned horrible.

The dead jumped us.

Literally.

The hundreds that had been surrounding us just pounced on us with no weapons. They clawed at us with their bony hands and pressed us with their skeletal bodies.

I was buffeted by skeletons and once again, the world around me turned black.

…...

* * *

Okay, now this was getting annoying.

When I open my eyes again, I am somewhere totally unrecognizable.

_Again._

_"_Where are we now…" I mutter to myself as I survey my surroundings once more.

It was all too familiar this time.

We were in the underworld still, but a different part of the underworld.

Tartarus.

It was one of my first adventures and we were almost sucked in. I didn't think it would be any different now. If we got too close, we would get sucked in.

And what was even worse was that we sitting way too close to the edge for my comfort.

"We're in Tartarus." Nico stated breathlessly.

At that moment, I heard a deep rumbling. Like something big was waking from its slumber.

I take out riptide, un cap it and watch it transform into the celestial bronze sword.

"Guys, we have to leave. Now!" I hiss.

There was a moment's hesitation before we scramble up to our feet and start running away from the deep hole.

But it was too late.

Whatever was inside of the depths of Tartarus was already awake. A powerful wind started blowing us back and we started to loose our grip on the ground we were running on.

My feet start to slip and I almost fall forward. We were already too close to the edge to begin with and now, we're even closer.

At the last second, I dig my sword into the earth and hold on to it with one hand. I reach for Nico with the other and thankfully, he holds on. Then he reaches for Thalia and she's holding on as well.

We form a chain that relied solely on me holding on to my sword. I knew that if I lost my grip, we would all be dead.

I held on for what felt like minutes, _hours._ The winds buffeted us from all sides and my arms ached from holding on so tightly.

But then the earth around my sword began to break. I could see cracks forming around us. Any second now, the sword would break free.

And of course, I was right.

The earth finally gave way and my sword lost its traction. The winds took us for their own and we sailed back.

My sword was ripped away from my clutches and I saw it tumble into the depths of Tartarus. My eyes widen.

"NO!" I shout as I lose my sword.

"Percy!" I hear Thalia shout as we tumble into Tartarus.

This was it.

We were going to fall into Tartarus and never come out alive.

And riptide was gone.

I close my eyes as I feel myself fall into the dark depths of Tartarus and into the enemies' clutches.

* * *

**And there you have it. **

**I know, I know horrible cliffhanger...don't hate me! You're just gonna have to keep reading to find out what happens. ;)**

**Hopefully, the next chapter will be up quickley! **

**But for now, please give me feedback on how im doing by leaving me a review!**

**-Detective DG**


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